






CANNOT LEAVE THE LIBRARY 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


9—165 

■ x \« ■/>? B/VI «r\» 








I 






I 

































H 












Don’t mention it,' said Mr. D el more tranquilly it was more fun than a goat 









I 


» 
















Little Stories of Courtship 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


r 

Little Stories of Married Life 


Ti tttlc jgtortfs of 
C(outtsf)ip 

25p 

£D,arp jgtetoart cjutttng 



New York 

McClure, Phillips & Co. 
Mcmv 


< 2 . 




\ 


the library of 

CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

APK 5 1905 


dr; 


rignt Entry „ 
S /9 0'S 

0U*6s & XX s. Mm 

OOPY A. 




Copyright, 1905, by 
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 
Published, March , 1905 



Copyright, 1903-04., by The Phelps Publishing Co. Copyright, 1896, by J. B. 
Lippincott. Copyright, 1905, by The Butterick Publishing Co. Copyright 
1905, by The S. S. McClure Co. Copyright, 1904, by Ainslee Magazine Co. 
Copyright, 1905, The S. S. McClure Co. Copyright, 1895, by Harper & Brother. 
Copyright, 1905, by The Ridgway-Thayer Co, 


Contents 


PAGE 

Paying Guests i 

Henry 79 

When Love is Kind 101 

Latimer’s Mother 127 

In Cinderella’s Shoes 149 

In Regard o Josephine 165 

The Coupons of Fortune . . . . .189 

The Perfect Tale 207 






























Paying Guests 



Paying Guests 

A Practical hove Story 

✓IX ISS ALETHEA BENNETT turned 
ill the corner by the drug store in a 
fierce gust of November wind, pass- 
ing unnoticed as she did so the rather tall, 
thin and distinguished figure of a young man 
forging ahead with a long, swinging stride in 
the other direction. Other women’s garments 
blew loosely against the horizon, but hers re- 
mained compact and trim, her brown cloth 
skirt well held together above her slender, 
prettily-shod feet, and the brown tendrils of 
her hair kept in place under her brown felt 
hat by the net veil she wore. She had that air 
of subdued and graceful modishness which 
was inseparable from her, although she was 
on her usual depressing errand of “getting 
something” for lunch. Luncheon was a fell 
meal, involving thought when you didn’t ex- 
pect to give it; it was constitutionally sup- 
posed to take care of itself from the provender 
of the day before, only to fall short of com- 
pletion at the last minute when the butter, 
or the eggs, or the bread hadn’t come, or the 
[ 3 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


cold roast of mutton, which Bridget had 
vaunted as enough for “the whole bilin’ of 
’em,” turned out to be a scrag of bone with a 
few scraps of meat adhering to it. Bridget was 
of a strictly economical frame of mind, with 
an imagination which turned two leaves of 
lettuce on a saucer in the ice-box into “the 
makin’s of a salad ” at any time, but she was 
a person on whose experience Alethea couldn’t 
help relying confidingly, in spite of finding 
the support slip from under her almost daily; 
she had so little experience herself that she 
had to lean on some one. 

To a woman who had spent nearly ten of 
her thirty years under foreign skies, with no 
greater responsibilities than to read and drive 
with a pleasantly invalided father, and to at- 
tend social functions with a pleasantly fash- 
ionable aunt, and assist at charming little 
teas in their own apartment, the process of 
keeping boarders in an American suburb, 
in the old house which had turned out unex- 
pectedly to be her sole patrimony, was neces- 
sarily perplexing. She had agreed, if blindly, 
with her advisers, at the end of the year of 
settlement that followed her home-coming 
on the death of her two protectors, that it 
was quite providentially the thing for her to 
[ 4 ] 


Paying Guests 


do when she had a house on her hands that 
was too big and unmodern to be either rented 
or sold. Her only alternative — and one not 
to be considered — was the home of a half- 
brother, across the seas in Naples, whose 
wife was distinctly antagonistic to “ in-laws. ” 

But the bright Italian days were far from 
her thought at present. What should she get 
for lunch ? That was the question. For her- 
self she did not care; she had come to feel in 
the last two months that she could almost 
have eaten sawdust with a contented spirit if 
only her own comfort were involved, but 
when you had people in your house who paid 
for things — hungrily expectant mortals, 
shorn of responsibility — ! She had learned 
that a meal was a sacred thing, not to be held 
lightly. She gazed up and down the village 
street now in vain hope that the shops might 
suggest some unhackneyed article of food in 
an emergency. 

There was the bakery, with the same choco- 
late and angel cake, and the two pies and 
small pink and white cakes which were 
always in the show window — mysteriously 
arid confectionery, both hard and crumbling, 
sandily suggestive of the desert. There was 
the fish man's, littered with oyster shells, 
[5l 


Little Stories of Courtship 


past which you walked quickly. There was 
the butcher’s, with two preternaturally long- 
necked and yellow-skinned chickens hanging 
dismally in the foreground, and there were 
the hardware and the fancy goods stores and 
the plumber’s shop, before you came finally 
— as you always had to come finally — to the 
grocer’s. One window of it now was unim- 
aginatively given over to serried ranks of 
blue bottles containing mineral water, and 
the other to a chill green and white tea-set 
flanked by yellow packages of breakfast food, 
the acquisition of the former depending, as a 
notice set forth, upon the purchase of the 
cereal. 

Even the inner shelves gave hint of noth- 
ing more available in a hurry than the cold 
canned salmon that was a confession of her 
incompetency. She was in the act of purchas- 
ing it when she turned at a voice beside her. 

“ Good-morning, Miss Bennett.” 

“Oh, good - morning, Mrs. Fort,” said 
Alethea. She had but slight acquaintance in 
the place, but she recognized the speaker as 
a neighbour who was in her own line of work, 
and had been kind to her in little ways. She 
was a slight, gentle looking woman, dressed 
in black. 


[ 6 ] 


Paying Guests 


“You are on the same errand I am, I see .” 
She held up a package. “I’ve been wanting to 
see you lately and find out how you’re getting 
along.” 

“Oh, I’m getting along quite well, thank 
you,” said Alethea. She hoped she was telling 
the truth. “But I don’t seem to fill the house 

— it’s so far from the town.” 

“Are the Meyerses with you yet ?” 

“Why, yes,” said Alethea, with that fear- 
some pang she was learning to feel at a hint of 
dissatisfaction. “Had they intended leaving? 
Mrs. Meyers has seemed so pleasant lately.” 

“They’ve probably thought better of it,” 
said Mrs. Fort evasively. “I believe they did 
go to inquire about board at Mrs. Hurd’s, and 
they came to me, but lots of people like to 
inquire that way when they’ve really no 
thought of leaving. I told Mrs. Brulwyne the 
other day — I met her at her daughter Cora’s 

— to tell Mrs. Meyers that if anything was 
wrong to just speak to you, and I knew you’d 
make it right. I’m glad I met you now, I’ve 
just sent Mr. Conway to your house to see if 
you could take him. They have the measles 
at Mrs. Hurd’s and he has to leave on 
account of the choir. You must have passed 

>* him on the way.” 


[ 7 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


“Mr. Conway — ?” asked Alethea. 

“Yes, don’t you know ? He’s the temporary 
organist at St. Mark’s; he’s only been here 
a few weeks. He’s very nice, I know you’ll 
like him.” 

“It was very kind of you to send him to 
me,” said Alethea, the more resolutely be- 
cause the prospect of sheltering a strang 
young man offended her. But what was she 
to claim an immunity beyond her fellows ? 

“ His coming will please the Meyerses, any- 
way,” stated Mrs. Fort significantly. “Women 
do like to have a man in the house, and when 
it’s Mr. Conway — ! They say he’s gone on 
Florrie.” 

“Oh!” said Alethea, unpleasantly enlight- 
ened. She hurried home, her heart sinking 
as she entered the house, for it was after 
twelve o’clock, and the Miss Cosletts, who 
were teachers, came home promptly. They 
were women who never complained, and it 
went to her heart to fail them. But to her 
surprise when she reached the kitchen she 
found Sarah already carrying in the dishes 
to the dining-room, and Bridget, whom she 
had left sourly dumb and lowering, cooking 
merrily now in the height of garrulous good 
humour. 


[ 8 ] 


Paying Guests 

“Sure whin ye was so late I had to knock 
up something,” she explained cheerfully. 
“IPs what I’m always tellin’ you, there’s no 
sinse in buyin’ things continual for the likes 
of them, when there’s the makin’s of a meal 
in the house. ’Tis dollars I’m savin’ you 
where many another would have no con- 
science. Hurry and take this in, Sarah, and 
tell ’em there’s apple fritters cornin’.” She 
gave a detaining wink to her mistress. “Bide 
you here for the minute, Miss Bennett. Sure 
they wants to be findin’ out from Sarah about 
the grand young man that’s just been after 
takin’ the corner room since you’ve gone. He 
said ’twas Mrs. Fort sent him, so I gave Sarah 
the tip that the price was eight a week in 
advance — and that’s a dollar more than you’d 
be askin’ yourself. He’ll bring his traps here 
this afternoon unless word is sent to the con- 
thrary. Sarah said as the ladies was all 
spyin’ out their room doors as she took him 
up and down. Just you hear Mrs. Meyers 
now — butter wouldn’t melt in the mouth 
of her.” 

“It’s twenty-eight cents a pound,” said 
Alethea absently. “We can have salmon cro- 
quettes to-morrow, Bridget.” She added 
gratefully, “I’m very much obliged to you, 
[ 9 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

Bridget, for taking charge so well when I was 
out.” 

It was late when she finally nerved herself, 
as she always had to do, for the plunge into 
the presence of the feeders in the dining- 
room. The Miss Cosletts indeed were just 
leaving — tall, fair-haired, pleasant looking 
women, of whom Alethea would have liked 
to see more if they had not lived in an enclo- 
sure filled so obstructively with extra work 
and examinations and engagements that she 
could only shake hands with them, as it were, 
across the palings. For the rest, Alethea was 
sensitively quick to note any sign of dis- 
approval, but to-day Mrs. Meyers, who gave 
the keynote, was all smiles. She was a heavily 
built person, with a narrow face, a high 
Roman nose and greyish sandy hair, rolled 
off her forehead. She wore gold eye-glasses 
and was usually arrayed, as at present, in 
an ancient silk or satin garment remodelled 
from the fashion of a past day. She had a 
large graciousness of manner as she said: 

“You did not tell us that we were to have 
Mr. Conway here, Miss Bennett.” 

“I didn’t know it myself until just now,” 
said Alethea. 

“The mean thing! He never breathed a 
[io] 


Paying Guests 


word about it when I saw him last night,” 
said Miss Meyers. “I know he just did it to 
tease me.” She tossed her head coquettishly. 
She was a floridly handsome, large-featured 
girl with magnificent red hair and a brilliant 
complexion; if her lips were too full, her teeth 
were very white and continually in evidence. 
She wore a green shirt-waist of cheap material, 
with an exaggerated collar and belt, in the 
extreme of the fashion. 

“Why, Florrie! When did you see Mr. Con- 
way last night?” asked Mrs. Meyers, with a 
side glance at Mrs. Brulwyne, who was 
stretching out her small grey head, turtlewise, 
and under cover of the conversation surrepti- 
tiously spearing a fritter from the distant 
dish, although she had already one uneaten 
upon her plate. 

“Oh, I only stopped him to say good eve- 
ning,” said Florrie airily, “he was coming out 
of the drug store with the Dawson girls. / 
knew he’d leave Mrs. Hurd’s before long.” 

“ It’s because the little Hewlit boy has the 
measles,” explained Mrs. Brulwyne, in a 
thick disagreeable voice. “I heard it at my 
daughter’s this morning. You can pour some 
more chocolate in my cup, Sarah, that I had 
last time is too sweet. One thing is certain, 

In] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


Mrs. Hewlit will have to look after her child 
now, she’s neglected him shamefully. Cora 
met her on the train going into town every 
single day last week. Of course you know 
she’s going to get a separation from her hus- 
band, he has a fearful temper for all he looks 
so pleasant. They say he tore up six white 
starched collars the other day in one of his 
rages; the chambermaid found them on the 
floor, and he almost swore when she put them 
back on the chiffonier — he said they were 
frayed on the edges, and he’d been trying for 
weeks to keep them out of the laundry. As if 
that was any excuse!” 

“ Mr. Conway has a lovely disposition,” pro- 
claimed Mrs. Meyers, officially. “Of course, 
singing in the choir as Florrie does, she has 
every chance to know. Sarah, I will have some 
more chocolate as well as Mrs. Brulwyne, if 
you please” 

“It’s such fun to try and make him mad, 
said Miss Meyers, with a smile of reminis- 
cence. “Have you met him, Miss Bennett?” 

“No,” replied Alethea. She had forgotten 
to eat anything herself. 

“He’s a nice looking young fellow, but I 
don’t see what there is about him that is con- 
sidered so attractive,” said Mrs. Brulwyne, 
[12] 


Paying Guests 


disparagingly. “They say he’s gone on one of 
the Dawson girls.” 

“The idea! He hardly knows them,” cried 
Miss Meyers, eagerly. 

“I was going to tell you” — Mrs. Brul- 
wyne’s voice became deeper — “that just as 
soon as Cora heard there was a chance of Mr. 
Conway coming here, Miss Bennett — it was 
the grocer’s boy told her — she went at once 
to the doctor’s and asked if there would be any 
danger on account of my going backward and 
forward so much, but he said he thought it 
would be safe to try it, although he quite agreed 
with Cora that taking the children’s tempera- 
ture every two hours for the next ten days 
could do no harm. Of course she felt very 
much relieved. Cora just worships Dr. Baffy, 
he is so good with the children.” 

“Safe! Well, I should think so,” said Mrs. 
Meyers, contemptuously, harking back to the 
text of the discourse. “The idea of trying to 
keep Mr. Conway from coming! — Sarah, 
are there no hot fritters ? Then will you please 
hand the dish here ? Miss Florence has had 
only one.” 

She gave a glance of extreme disfavour at 
Mrs. Brulwyne, who indeed presented a pecul- 
iarly indigent and unattractive appearance, 
[i3l 


Little Stories of Courtship 


due partly to the shapeless black gowns she 
wore, guiltless of collar or bow. She was not 
a pleasing person to have in the house. She 
had a miraculously absorbent power for any 
sort or kind of gossip, and she was incon- 
ceivably greedy, appropriating the larger por- 
tion of every dish that came upon the table. 
She spent the greater part of every day with 
her wealthy daughter, who had a large es- 
tablishment around the corner, returning, 
however, for her meals. Rumour said that Mrs. 
Brulwyne performed the office of extra seam- 
stress and nurse-maid there, and that her son- 
in-law, who refused to have her as an inmate, 
paid her board on these conditions. Alethea 
felt sometimes a sympathy with the son-in- 
law, much as she disapproved of him; there 
were hours when she could hardly bring her- 
self to sit at the same table with Mrs. Brul- 
wyne. She looked at her now, and wondered 
if she would get dulled to the situation in 
time, or if she would only mind it more — and 
then came back to the present with the voice 
of Miss Meyers. 

“Mr. Conway is so fond of olives, Miss 
Bennett — I thought you’d like to know — 
and chocolate cake. A friend of mine — Mrs. 
Steers, I’m at her house a great deal — al- 


Paying Guests 


ways has a bottle of olives and a chocolate 
cake for him when he comes to read Italian 
with Mr. Steers. It was such a shame that he 
wasn’t well enough to come last week; he 
wrote such a lovely note, saying how disap- 
pointed he was. I think fellows who are away 
from home appreciate little attentions like 
that, don’t you ? It gives them the home 
feeling.” 

“I suppose it does,” said Alethea, with a 
mirthful flash. 

“First impressions are so much,” stated Mrs. 
Meyers, ponderously. “Sarah, you had bet- 
ter not put that salt-shaker at Mr. Conway’s 
place to-night, it delivers rather freely; Miss 
Florence knows how to manage it. If we can 
assist you in any way, Miss Bennett, with 
your arrangements, at such short notice, I 
hope you’ll let us know.” 

“ If you want a large chair for Mr. Conway’s 
room I can easily spare my big rocker,” said 
Miss Meyers, affectionately. “He’s so re- 
gardless of his own comfort. I know his ways 
so well , he’d never think of asking you for 
one. I wouldn’t mind in the least” 

“Thank you, there is an arm-chair in the 
room,” said Alethea, with sedateness. Never 
had assistance been offered her before. 

[i5l 


Little Stories of Courtship 


As she went upstairs now to see that every- 
thing was in order for the new “ guest,” she 
knew that she ought to be very glad that an- 
other room was taken, to the possible furth- 
ering of paying one’s mortgage and expenses. 
She was growing to feel with inward panic 
that she was not a good manager — as indeed 
how should she be one ? She had never had 
anything to manage. 

Alethea’s had been a life distinctly depend- 
ent on the pleasure of others, while at no time 
appearing in a sacrificial aspect. She had been 
attendant always on her father and her aunt, 
and though in American society abroad she 
was spoken of as popular and admired, and 
supposed to have many lovers, yet her ex- 
perience in that line, since her early youth, 
had been limited. She couldn’t help wonder- 
ing sometimes why this was so; there seemed 
to be a bright little enamel-like casing to her 
manner that kept people on the outside. 
Now, however, although up to her thirtieth 
year Alethea had been only the conventional 
young woman of society, poverty made it 
a very respectable age for depending in this 
way on her own exertions, although it annoyed 
her to have to explain this to people, for she 
looked much as she had done at twenty- 

h6] 


Paying Guests 


five, and that was little different after all from 
the way she had looked at twenty, save for 
that touch of experience which time inevit- 
ably brings. 

She had a supple figure, more beautifully 
rounded than in the days of her girlhood, a 
charmingly erect carriage, and a small oval 
face, with a proud upper lip, a pretty nose, 
slightly curved, soft dark eyes and soft dark 
hair that escaped into wavy tendrils. She had 
at once a delicate neatness and a delicate 
brightness about her. She had a certain qual- 
ity of remaining passive until a ray from an- 
other consciousness reached her, when jewel- 
like she sparkled and glowed from every 
depth of her being. 

Alethea was something on the order of the 
puzzle whose solution is to be found in trum- 
pet, but not in drum, and in lettuce, but not 
in laurel. She felt tall, but was barely medium 
in height; she thought herself humble, but it 
was the humility of pride. She was sensitively 
unpractical in large matters, but felt capable 
of whatever work any other woman could do. 
She had that form of feminine courage which 
consists in being afraid of everything, and 
shrinking from nothing which offered itself 
as a duty. If she had been told to drive a pair 


Little Stories of Courtship 


of wild horses as a part of her woman’s work 
she would have gathered her skirts decor- 
ously together as she stepped into the wagon, 
and though her small soft hand trembled on 
the reins that leashed her steeds for their mad 
flight, her eyes would have been steady with 
the inherited spirit in them of a long line of 
gallant ancestors. She was lonely, yet she 
would have died rather than offer herself for 
pity; she would assume rather that loneli- 
ness was the natural condition of life, and 
quite pleasurably expected. She was always 
generously ready to save sympathetic people 
from being sorry for her. Yet she was very 
unmodern for all; she had no ambition to earn 
money. She had no ambition to be independ- 
ent. She was glad of the opportunity to earn 
her living, but if it came to preference — the 
natural desire of a woman to lie softly and 
live delicately with no effort of her own was 
ineradicably born in her. She would have 
liked to be taken care of, if love had gone 
with the care, better than anything else in 
the world. 

Keeping a house for people who pay 
for their accommodation is not con- 
ducive to meditation. Alethea had had a 
change of mind from those inexperienced fore- 

h8] 


Paying Guests 


castings when she had thought it would be so 
much easier to take “paying guests” than 
entertaining on a large scale — one would 
have only the meals, and, say clean towels, to 
look after. Her afternoon had been passed 
in the frustrated work incident on a collaps- 
ing stove-pipe, and another errand all the 
way into the town for a bottle of milk to be 
used in the unforeseen manufacture of a 
pudding. Alethea had sometimes a bitter 
feeling that a whole herd of cattle wouldn’t 
obviate Bridget’s daily necessity for extra 
milk. 

She was just sitting in her room for a few 
minutes’ rest when Sarah’s voice announced 
that “the gentleman” was below. 

“Very well,” said Alethea. 

She must go down stairs again. She rose to 
smooth her hair perfunctorily, and stood in 
front of the glass, her arms resting absently 
on the table. The gown she had on was of dis- 
tinctly Parisian manufacture, although it was 
severely plain in its curves and folds; she had 
worn it first two winters ago, when — what 
was it that took her suddenly away from the 
scene, and transported her once more to 
Rome ? She was at St. Peter’s, with multitudes 
and multitudes and multitudes of people, and 

[19] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


with multitudes crowding at the doors, and 
an old man in white robes with his hand out- 
stretched in benediction. 

Some one was playing on the piano down- 
stairs! Alethea flew thither on light feet with 
an impulse that came from the old life that 
was hers no more; flew down the stairs 
breathlessly and into the darkening room of 
the winter afternoon, where a young man sat 
with his hands on the piano, playing. He 
paused to turn his head at the light step 
behind him. 

“Oh, go on, go on!” cried Alethea, im- 
peratively. “Those were the trumpets — it’s 
what they played at St. Peters when the 
Pope — ” her eyes were fastened on his. 

The young man nodded. “Yes.” 

“Oh, go on , please!” she urged, with a 
deeply thirsting heart. She dropped into a low 
chair by the piano with her eyes fixed on his 
face, although she was not conscious of it. 
She was under the great dome once more, her 
father was with her, the gorgeous uniforms, 
the mass of colour from the swaying crowd, 
all of it came to her with those bright trum- 
pet strains, that breathed of a childlike joy. 
And over all was the blue sky of Rome. 

“Were you there last year ?” he asked after 


Paying Guests 


a while, as his fingers touched the keys more 
softly in an old chant. 

“No, it was the year before that.” 

“So was I.” 

“Oh,” her eyes glowed upon him. She was 
aware suddenly that he was young, that he 
was good to look at, and that he was of her 
world. “I’m so glad — it seems so long since 
Pve met anybody. We spent a great many 
winters in Rome, my father and my aunt and 
I, but that last one my father was ill. Please 
go on playing.” 

“I was there only that one winter, but I 
went back last Easter. I had friends — the 
Carletons. If you lived there so long you 
must have known them.” 

“The Carletons ! Why, of course /” She 
gave a joyous little laugh. “Everyone knows 
the Carletons. But” — she looked mystified — 
“how do you happen to be here ?” 

He laughed. “Oh, I’m acting as substitute 
for the organist. My friend who has the posi- 
tion — Herbert Johns — is off for his health, 
and Pm just keeping the place for him in his 
absence. Pm waiting myself on a diplomatic 
appointment abroad. I hope to be back again 
in Rome this Easter.” 

“Oh!” her eyes looked wistfully eager. 

[21 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


‘Were you at Isabel Carleton’s wedding, 
perhaps ?” 

“I certainly was,” he asserted smilingly, 
his fingers lightly weaving into the wedding 
march. “You may have heard my name — 
Malcolm Conway.” 

“The Carletons’s Malcolm Conway ! ” 

She rose, as he did also, and stood gazing 
up at his smiling face, with the kind, deep-set 
dark eyes, the dark moustache and small 
pointed beard, as if it were the face of a 
friend. “Why, I should think I had ! Oh, if 
you knew what it was to see any one from 
that life! I haven’t any friends here — we 
stayed away too long — it was a mistake. 
What is it, Sarah ?” She broke off to go with 
her graceful, gliding step toward the beckon- 
ing figure in the doorway. 

“Did you mane the chops for breakfast ?” 
Sarah’s voice was a discreet whisper. 

“Yes, I ordered three pounds.” 

“’Twas only five chops come. The butcher 
he left the things on top of the ice-box whin 
Bridget had her back turned, and she’s only 
just after findin’ them.” 

“I’ll go out and get some more at once,” 
said Alethea, with a heart which she sternly 
forbade to sink. 


[ 22 ] 


Paying Guests 


“And we’ll want a dozen of eggs and a 
can of tomatoes and a yeast cake, Bridget 
says. She forgot when ye was out before.” 

“Very well,” said Alethea in futile exasper- 
ation. Sarah was needed in the kitchen, and 
she would be obliged to carry these warring 
packages herself. Her arms ached already at 
the prospect. 

Conway had stopped playing, and was 
standing by the window, and although he turn- 
ed once more and smiled at her approach it 
was as if he had just remembered her pres- 
ence again. Something had gone from the 
interview. He was holding an open pocket- 
book in his hand. 

“ I beg your pardon — I was looking to see 
if I had the wherewithal for my landlady,” 
he explained apologetically. “The maid im- 
pressed it on me with extraordinary firmness 
this morning that I was to pay at once in ad- 
vance; probably the last man defaulted. I’m 
the most forgetful of mortals. I suppose I 
ought to see Miss Bennett, I sent up my 
name to her.” 

“I am Miss Bennett,” said Alethea. 

“I mean the Miss Bennett who keeps the 
house.” 

“I am the Miss Bennett who keeps the 

[23] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

house,” repeated Alethea with a dignity which 
removed her into chill impersonal space. “You 
may pay me now, if you desire.” 

“Oh!” said Conway, staring. There was a 
dead pause. He hesitatingly proffered the bills 
he held in his hand, with sudden, stiff em- 
barrassment. 

“Is this correct ?” 

“Quite,” said Alethea, receiving them in 
her white palm. Something burnt that palm, 
and choked her throat, and forced a scalding 
tide to her face; it was the first time in her life 
she had ever taken money from a young 
man. A delighted laugh from behind her em- 
phasized a fact hitherto forgotten — he was 
the young man who was said to be “gone on” 
Florrie Meyers. 

XT' OT another meal will I cook for that 
d V Mrs. Meyers — no, not if she got down 
and prayed me to!” 

“But, Bridget!” Alethea looked imploring. 
“You can’t mean that, you know I couldn’t 
keep this house without you — and you’ve 
been so good.” She spoke feelingly, there 
was something very human about Bridget. 

“If you can get another to do your work 
you’re welcome to. To say that the coffee was 
[24] 


Paying Guests 


made with dirty water! Sarah does be tellin’ 
me that not a meal goes by without her givin’ 
me a black eye.” 

“Ah, and that she does,” said the mischief- 
making Sarah, sympathizingly. “The tongue 
of her — !” 

“’Tis she or I that can be going,” said 
Bridget, still rampant. “No fault have I to 
find with you, Miss Bennett, that’s a lady 
born — ’tis like me own mother ye’ve been to 
me — but not for no one will I slave for that 
Mrs. Meyers, and the fire in the range gone 
out on me since six o’clock this morning with 
the broken grate that I do be proppin’ up 
with bricks continual till the knees is wore off 
me.” 

“O-oh!” said Alethea, enlightened at last. 
Bridget’s complaints always crawled back- 
ward, crab-like, to their source. “ I’m so sorry 
you had trouble with the range. I’ll send for a 
man at once to fix it.” She hastily escaped at 
the first gleam of peace only to find Sarah 
weeping on the stairs. “What is the matter ?” 

“Oh, sure, ma’am, it’s Bridget that’s takin’ 
the heart out of me.” 

Alethea looked astounded. “Why, I thought 
you were such friends!” 

“Friends— oh, ma’am!” said Sarah, deeply. 
[25] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


“Since Mr. Conway give me a dollar last 
Saturday she’s that strained on me not a bite 
nor a sup will she let me have, but sets the 
food in the closet and stands with her back 
agin’ the door.” 

“Well, never mind,” said Alethea, patiently. 
“I’ll see that you get something to eat after 
this, Sarah. You go for the stove man now 
and I’ll clear off the luncheon dishes in the 
dining-room.” She was conscious that it had 
been so far a particularly inauspicious day; 
it was the beginning of January, and cloudy 
and dark at midday; the roof had leaked with 
the weight of snow, and the coal hadn’t come 
to tone up the weak fire in the furnace. A 
group of her inmates were gathered now 
around the burning logs in the drawing-room, 
behind the portieres. Alethea was too busy with 
her work at first and the clatter of the dishes 
to take note of the conversation, until familiar 
words forced themselves upon her ear: 

“Of course I suppose she does the best she 
can, but when you pay for things, you do 
have a right to expect — Yes, it’s very trying.” 
Mrs. Meyers’s upraised voice showed that she 
had touched upon a subject of absorbing in- 
terest. “I did think that with a gentleman in 
the house, the meals would have improved, 
[26] 


Paying Guests 


but there has been a great falling off in the 
last month. Miss Honora Coslett came in 
my room for a few minutes yesterday ; you 
know she never complains, but she said she 
was just a little afraid her sister's health 
wouldn’t stand it.” 

“What did you think of the butter giving 
out at the table again to-day?” said Florrie, 
with a laugh. 

“I thought it was disgraceful,” chimed in 
Mrs. Brulwyne. “Did you notice how hard 
the potatoes were at dinner ? I had to try four 
before I found one that was eatable.” 

“Mine was done,” said Mrs. Meyers, im- 
partially, “ but I know the potatoes are often 
hard — yes, often. I said to her last week , 4 Miss 
Bennett, will you ask Bridget to cook the 
vegetables longer ? When a person has a 
sensitive digestion like mine it makes such a 
difference.’ She promised to see about it; she 
always is nice when you speak to her about 
things, I will say that, but they do not im- 
prove. The servants impose on her. It is 
even impossible to get Florrie’s egg boiled 
properly; I insisted on her leaving it to show 
Miss Bennett this morning. What I object 
to mostly, however, is the lack of variety. 
They say Mrs. Hurd sets an elegant table.” 

[27] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


“Three kinds of dessert every night,” as- 
serted Mrs. Brulwyne, with gluttonous intona- 
tion. “ My son-in-law was very indignant when 
Cora told him what we were getting here lately, 
he says he always believes in getting your 
money's worth, if it's only a nickel. I will 
have to ask for a gas stove to dress by, the 
furnace gives so little heat.” 

“Well, poor Mr. Conway went out of the 
house hungry last night,” said Florrie, lightly. 
“The beef Sarah brought him was done to a 
cinder. I wanted him to send it back again, 
but he pretended it was all right, so as not to 
hurt her feelings, of course. I just made a 
joke of it, to please him. Did you see the 
look she gave us when we were laughing 
together ? ” 

“No,” said Mrs. Brulwyne, yawning. 

“Well, I think she acts awfully queer about 
him,” continued Miss Meyers, interestedly. 
Mother has noticed it, haven't you, mother ? 
Anything to attract his attention! Shouldn’t 
you think a woman as old as she is would 
know better ? And she's so inconsiderate, let- 
ting him carve that tough chicken for her the 
other day, when a musician has to be so care- 
ful about straining his hands. You know she 
hardly ever speaks to him at the table, but one 
[28] 


Paying Guests 


day when he was alone in here, playing 
some queer thing on the piano, she dashed 
right in and said, ‘Oh, you know I can’t stay 
away when you play that!’ I followed right 
behind to ask what it was, and he got up from 
the piano and said, ‘I should never play it for 
you , Miss Meyers — I know your taste too 
well,’ and he stalked right away. Wasn’t it 
bold of her! And I’ve met her in the 
village with him several times just when he 
comes back from practising on the organ. We 
just rattle on together, and she hardly ever 
says a word. I don’t think he likes it at all — 
her meeting him.” 

“A woman in her position cannot be too 
careful,” said Mrs. Meyers, sagely. 

Alethea went to the door to close it — she 
had forgotten that there was a door — and 
met Miss Honora Coslett coming through the 
hall. The Miss Cosletts were having an un- 
foreseen holiday; the school was closed on 
account of illness. Her face was pleasant, as 
usual, yet there was a faint shade across it. 

“I beg your pardon, Miss Bennett, but 
will you see about Sister’s milk ? It’s been 
sour for three evenings, and at this season of 
the year, I’m afraid it must be carelessness. 
I’m so sorry to speak of it, but you know how 

[29] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

Sister depends on the milk since her illness 
last year.” 

“Oh, it is a shame!” said Alethea, with all 
her heart. “Indeed, Miss Coslett, it shall not 
occur again.” 

“And if you could let us have a little oil 
stove or something — You see, Mrs. Brul- 
wyne keeps the register open in her room all 
the time, and we can’t get any heat. In mild 
weather we haven’t minded, but now — We 
are very comfortably arranged here, the room 
is very nice, and being so near the school we 
would rather not make a change.” 

“No, indeed,” responded Alethea, with that 
pang which she was only too used to feeling, of 
such a rending nature that it seemed to rip a 
chasm in the solid earth below. Mrs. Meyers 
was right; people ought to have what they 
paid for. Even the kind Miss Cosletts knew 
that. Her incompetency wore on her nerves, 
and hurt her sense of hospitality. But back of 
this rankling sense there was another rankling 
thought — in regard to Malcolm Conway. 

It was useless to pretend that she did not 
mind his laughing and talking as he did with 
Florrie, and all the more because she knew 
that he was not in the least “gone on” her. 
Her feelings in regard to Florence Meyers 


Paying Guests 

were a puzzle to her in their icy dislike. She 
would have liked to take Miss Meyers up 
with a pair of tongs, at arm’s length, and de- 
posit her somewhere over the border. 

After the discovery that he was the Carle- 
tons’s Mr. Conway — who had once been 
nearly engaged to Isabel — and after the 
gradual subsidence of her first confusion, by 
some miracle there had been a midday meal 
alone together and in the hour following he 
had played for her, and they had talked and 
talked of the old life like two people of one 
kind meeting on an island. But after that, 
which had seemed such a promising begin- 
ning of a friendship, she had taken herself 
uncompromisingly to task. Such companion- 
ship was not for her. 

Malcolm Conway! Her memory had recon- 
structed the image once given her by his 
friends, to add to her knowledge of him now; 
a man of bright temper, of fine grain, of many 
talents, whom every one liked, a man with a 
career before him. Yes, but she was no “young 
lady” to meet him half-way in pleasant social 
intercourse ; “a woman in her position” — she 
had anticipated Mrs. Meyers’s words, and 
tried to keep them steadily before her in the 
six weeks that were past. They were answera- 

[31] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


ble for a fresh accession of that little enamel- 
like casing of manner which kept people on 
the outside. Her eyes were brightly chill when 
he glanced her way, and made Conway un- 
comfortable, all the more because he had 
seen the eyes when they were soft. A man 
may not care to claim consideration, and yet 
like to be liked. 

He was doing an act of kindness to a friend 
by staying in this hole; if he was bored it 
didn’t count for much, after all. He was a fel- 
low who did kind acts easily, and he was used 
to being somewhat bored while he did them. 
He was in fact a man not made for a self- 
centred and solitary life, but for the joys of 
home and a family; he had wanted to be mar- 
ried young — he was one of those fellows who 
grow up early, and at twenty are men, not 
boys — but the joy had passed him by and 
taken with it something of the ardour of youth. 
Since those days he had come gradually to 
have only the desire of the artist for a pictur- 
esque state of existence at some future time, 
but the impetus to seek it had left him; he 
did not particularly care to seek anything. 
While still in the midst of the enjoyment of 
life he was beginning to feel an odd desultori- 
ness in it. Although he was a favourite with 
[32] 


Paying Guests 


women and a man of the world, the critical 
or unreceptive mood in a woman curiously 
alienated him; he was almost supersensitively 
quick to feel it. Perhaps the real reason was 
that underneath his assured manner was an 
innately modest diffidence in his own powers 
of pleasing which no success could do more 
than overlay. It warmed his heart to be wel- 
comed on the instant, he liked to be smiled 
upon; Isabel Carleton’s greatest attraction 
for him had been this talent for frank wel- 
coming. 

The only youthful sunshine he got here 
was from Florrie. After the chill aloofness of 
Alethea it was pleasant to turn to the efful- 
gent smile of as handsome a girl as Miss 
Meyers. She was trivial and common, she 
bored him when she talked, but beauty is a 
concrete good to the masculine eye, and he 
had a kindly feeling toward her because she 
liked him. He was of too robust a masculine 
nature to be overcome outwardly by the fact 
that he was the only man among six women, 
but it perhaps showed in the sense that he did 
not always take his honours well, though 
young and old fluttered appreciatively when 
he came among them. 

There was a manner Alethea liked, and the 

[ 33 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

manner she didn’t like. He was invariably 
courteous and deferential to the Miss Cos- 
letts, charming them sometimes by soaring in 
company to those regions of higher informa- 
tion which they adored, but there were other 
times when he slid unexpectedly from under 
the conversation, and became frivolous and 
obstructive; he sometimes responded in kind 
to Mrs. Meyers’s intimacy, and sometimes 
ignored it; to Mrs. Brulwyne he was distantly 
civil, and no more; to Florrie — a woman can 
stand seeing a man to whom she feels attracted, 
in love with a woman below his standard, if 
the strength of his passion be sufficient to 
win respect, but cannot with equanimity view 
his frivolous companionship with such a 
woman. It hurt Alethea’s thought of him the 
more because through all his attitude to the 
others he always remembered her in a way 
that was different. There was a subconscious 
intimacy that could not be denied. His man- 
ner to her when she spoke, his gesture of at- 
tention, the way he held her chair for her, his 
involuntary, anxious glance to see how she 
took things, breathed a subtle deference and 
recognition; it was a tacit upholding to have 
him there. Neither could move nor speak un- 
noticed of the other; they might have con- 
134 ] 


Paying Guests 


versed for years in society and never have got 
so near as here in their apparent separateness. 

Alethea needed upholding. Life was grow- 
ing very hard for her. An awful premonition 
of entangling failure was taking her heart’s 
blood, although she still held her head high, 
and gave no sign with the courage of her cow- 
ardice. What was there for her if she failed ? 
Just because she was a woman it seemed as 
if there must be some one back of all this ven- 
turing with fortune to whom she could go and 
say: 

“This really is too much for me; I can’t 
do it as I thought,” and find herself com- 
fortably helped out of it all. It gave her such 
a queer feeling to think that she must always 
try to earn her living, that there was no 
support back of her own efforts. She knew 
how to do so little, that was the trouble; she 
didn’t even know how to be businesslike, 
to begin on. 

“May I come in and sit down ?” 

Alethea, at three o’clock, setting the now 
deserted drawing-room to rights, looked up to 
see Malcolm Conway standing in the doorway. 

“Yes, do,” she replied unguardedly. He 
had a way of entering the house and meeting 
her at odd times and seasons, but no matter 
[ 35 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


how unforeseen his appearance, it was usually 
promptly discovered by some of his admirers. 
He relapsed now into an easy chair like a 
man who was glad to rest, and sat in silence 
watching her round and supple figure in its 
gown of grey, made with an odd little morn- 
ing jacket, with a lacy frill at the throat, and 
tied with ribbons at the waist. She was a 
woman whose gowns were always soft and 
trailing, yet never in the way; they seemed in- 
describably to facilitate her rapid and gliding 
motion instead of impeding it, and a single 
touch of her hand swept one at any time into 
a modest cluster of drooping folds. If she 
were not accomplished in the coarser kinds of 
household work, her dusting was a fine art, so 
exquisitely swift and delicate was it, so poised 
and graceful her movements as she bent over 
a chair rung, or reached her arms upward 
to the tall vases on the mantelpiece, while the 
colour rose in her cheek, and her lips in- 
sensibly parted. She seemed to leave a flower- 
like freshness where her hands had touched. 

Conway, lying back in the easy chair, his 
face resting on one of his long, thin hands, 
and his deep-set eyes following Alethea, ap- 
proved the home-like picture. He was even 
smiling a little, thoughtfully, to himself when 
[ 36 ] 


Paying Guests 


she stood suddenly in front of him, her tone a 
tacit acknowledgment of the underlying bond. 

“No, don’t get up! I’ve been wanting to 
ask you something. If you would pay a little 
more attention to the Miss Cosletts.” She 
dropped into a chair in front of him and look- 
ed appealingly. 

“The Miss Cosletts!” He looked amazed. 

“If you would talk to them more,” said 
Alethea with hurried impulsiveness, “it 
would please them so much! They are such 
good women, and they work so hard, and it 
means so much to them to talk to a man — I 
never knew myself until I lived in this way 
what it meant. A little intelligent conversa- 
tion is such a treat. They did want so much 
last night to hear about Russia!” 

“Oh,” said Conway, unreceptively. Her 
words did not appeal to him; she could not 
know how many times he had been asked to 
talk to women who didn’t interest him. She 
had imagined him sensitively apologetic at 
being confronted with his omissions, and 
recognized instead by the light of experience 
the well known fractiousness of the man who 
feels taken to task. 

“Really, I’m sorry, you know, if these 
ladies rely on me for their entertainment,” 
[37l 


Little Stories of Courtship 


Conway went on. “They talk with such 
monotonous distinctness, don’t they ? I feel 
as if I were a kindergarten.” 

“Oh, if you prefer Miss Meyers’s voice,” 
said Alethea independent of her will. 

“Miss Meyers’s!” He looked again sur- 
prised and somewhat ruefully amused; he 
shook his head expressively, but he shut his 
lips tight, only opening them to say: “Miss 
Meyers is a very handsome girl; she seems to 
be good-hearted. But for Heaven’s sake don’t 
let’s talk of any of these people now! I never 
see you alone. I beg your pardon, but why do 
you stay in this dreadful mill anyway ? Your 
brother — ?” 

“His wife,” said Alethea, in a low voice, 
and this time she shut her lips. 

“But — ” he hesitated. “ Cant I do any- 
thing to help you ? I’m sure you’re not getting 
on.” 

“Thank you; I need no help,” returned 
Alethea, smiling proudly, in swift defence. Her 
troubles were her own, not the property of 
people who paid. 

He gazed at her thoughtfully for a moment, 
opened a book on the table carelessly and 
looked at the writing on the fly leaf, and then 
sauntered over to the piano, touching the keys 
[ 38 ] 


Paying Guests 


softly in the trumpet strain, watching for the 
quick response in her face. 

“I’ve just had a letter from Carleton,” he 
said abruptly, “ Fd like to show it to you. You 
know Fve been appointed consul to — ” he 
named the port in Italy., “My time is about 

up-” 

“In Italy!” 

“OA, Mr. Conway /” 

It was Miss Honora Coslett, tall, well set 
up and radiant, pushing back the portieres. 
“ Mrs. Meyers said she thought she heard the 
piano! I must go back and tell Sister to hurry. 
What a treat, to have some music this snowy 
afternoon! ” 

“ I hear you had quite a concert,” said Miss 
Meyers at the dinner table. The soup had 
been removed, and she was looking coquett- 
ishly at Conway, who sat beside her as she 
crumbled her bread. “Weren’t you the mean 
thing to have it without me!” 

“Why, it does look that way,” said Con- 
way, lazily. 

“I think he ought to give me a concert by 
myself, don’t you, Miss Bennett ?” 

“Certainly,” said Alethea. “You may bring 
in the mutton, Sarah, we’re waiting. What’s 
the matter ?” 


[ 39 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


Sarah stood stiffly. “It’s not cooked yet.” 

“Not cooked?” said Alethea; her cheeks 
began to tingle; every one was listening keenly; 
she felt a dire premonition of evil. “There 
was no need of having dinner until it was 
ready, but you can bring the meat in as it is 
now.” 

“Sure it’s raw yet,” stated Sarah, laconically. 

“Raw!” 

“Yes, ma’am. Bridget said — -” Sarah be- 
came a mere funnel for excited speech — 
“Bridget said as how the man never came 
to fix the grate of the range and roast twelve 
pounds of mutton she could not with the oven 
at a timperature you could hold your two 
hands in it for hours, and for yourself that’s 
a lady born, she’d make a fist at it but the 
heart was wore out of her slavin’ for them 
that thinks of naught but the fill of their 
stomachs.” 

“And where is Bridget, now?” asked 
Alethea. 

“She’s gone to bed with a sore tooth,” said 
Sarah relapsing suddenly into stoicism with 
her silver tray held in front of her at the cor- 
rect angle. 

“Well, upon my word!” cried Mrs. Brul- 
wyne, fiercely, trembling with anger, as she 
[4o] 


Paying Guests 


helped herself incessantly to the olives on the 
dish before her. “Upon my word , Miss Ben- 
nett, this is going beyond! No meat! No meat ! 
If you expect Mrs. Meyers and I are going 
to keep on paying for what we don’t get — ” 

“Really, Mrs. Brulwyne,” said Mrs. Mey- 
ers, haughtily, “pray do not drag me into the 
discussion ! Will you kindly hand me that dish ? 
Mr. Conway has not had an olive! Thank 
you. I’m sure, Miss Bennett, you have my 
sympathy both for the class of help and the 
class of people you seem obliged to take.” 

“ We don’t mind going without the meat at 
all,” said Miss Meyers, encouragingly, “ do 
we, Mr. Conway ? You needn’t mind about 
us, Miss Bennett.” 

“No, indeed,” murmured the Miss Cos- 
letts in unison. “If Sister could have an 
egg” — this from Miss Honora. 

Only Malcolm Conway had said no word. 
Alethea divined that the situation was un- 
endurable to him, and Mrs. Brulwyne’s vul- 
garity was less odious to her than his pity. 
Pity from a man who let himself be consid- 
ered one with a Florrie Meyers! She turned 
her head proudly from his sudden gaze, a 
look that seemed as if wrested from him 
with a wince. 


[4i] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


“I’m very sorry all this has happened,” 
she said, rising from the table, “but perhaps 
I can cook something in the chafing-dish. I’ll 
help you get the things, Sarah.” 

Alethea knew how to preside over a chafing- 
dish; as she bent over the silver circumference, 
her slender wrists deftly stirring and mixing, 
not once, but a second and a third portion, the 
scene faded away. She was no longer at this 
mercenary board; she was back in their apart- 
ments in Rome, her father was smiling at her 
from his invalid chair, Aunt Susan in black 
lace, was talking to Count Marinelli, Herbert 
Carleton and Baron von Inten were beside 
her. She reached for a cruet, absently, and 
her hanging sleeve caught in the stand of the 
chafing-dish, and touched a blue flame. The 
next instant Florence Meyers had thrown her- 
self with a scream in Conway’s path — it was 
Miss Coslett’s blue shawl that smothered the 
blaze, and called forth Miss Meyers’s shud- 
dering note of thankfulness: 

“ I never was so frightened in my life ! Mal- 
colm Conway, what were you thinking of! A 
musician like you! You might have ruined 
your hands /” 

An irrepressible smile came to Alethea’s lips, 
even through the sick heartbeat that followed 
[ 42 ] 


Paying Guests 

her danger; it was at the infuriate glare on 
Conway’s face. 

y/LETHEA was putting the finishing- 
touches to her toilet, tying a piece 
of black velvet ribbon over the wrist that 
had been scorched. Moved by some impulse 
she had put aside her usual plain evening 
garb, and arrayed herself in one of the 
gowns taken from her stores of a couple of 
years before. It was of some filmy, black ma- 
terial, cut slightly low in the neck to show her 
lovely white throat, and finished with a tucker 
of black net. The elbow sleeves had ruffles 
of the net, falling over the small, rounded 
arms, and in her hair she wore a soft black 
rosette. The gown, like all her gowns, though 
guiltless of furbelows, had the ineffaceable 
Paris cut and air. 

On the table stood a tall vase filled with 
red roses, and after hesitating a moment she 
took out one, with its long stem and green 
leaves, and pinned it at her belt. It was the 
crowning touch. She stood looking in the glass 
for a few minutes, as she had a fashion of do- 
ing since hers was the one familiar face she 
saw, and then smiled at the picture, half sadly, 
half gaily, as she left the room. It was her 
[ 43 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


protest against fate — she would meet failure 
gallantly, half-way, and go down with her flags 
flying. 

It was the day after the barbarous dinner, 
and a day, when, in spite of dire forebodings, 
all had gone well. The breakfast and the 
luncheon had been the culinary triumphs of 
an ominously peaceful Bridget, with promise 
of an evening meal as good, though the range 
man, on coming, had done no more than take 
a mysterious and hitherto unseen number, and 
depart. There had been an unusual solem- 
nity about the partaking of food — it was as 
loudly patent in its silence as the clanging bell 
that was now proclaiming the death of a town 
official. As Alethea swept her train to one side 
on entering the dining-room, revealing the jet- 
beaded slipper on her small foot, she felt at 
once the eyes fastened on her, and that every 
inch of her attire was taken note of. She had 
been wise in her generation; with the donning 
of the old-time raiment had come a fresh ac- 
cess of the old-time spirit. She felt daintily dis- 
regardful of the daily vexations, and smiled 
when Mrs. Meyers asked blandly if she were 
expecting company. 

“Why — perhaps!” said Alethea with 
one of her sudden flashes of unusual daring. 

[ 44 ] 


Paying Guests 


Maybe some one would come; who knew? 
How could any one ever tell the times and 
seasons for any happening in this world ? She 
might be welcoming a knight errant from Italy 
before midnight. She was removed even above 
her usual nervous tremor when things went 
wrong, and put aside her wretchedness at her 
incapacity for some future time. When Sarah, 
at her elbow, announced that the powdered 
sugar was “out” she only stated succinctly, 
“I ordered it this afternoon, but it hasn’t 
come; I suppose the snow has interfered with 
the delivery.” She did not even say that she 
was sorry. Conway was very silent, although 
Florrie sat with her arms on the table through- 
out the meal, at an angle that gave him a view 
of her face, and talked to him in a low voice. 
She wore a showy, turquoise waist from which 
the bloom had been rubbed a little, though the 
brilliant colour made her hair glitter like ruddy 
gold. It was very beautiful, but the throat be- 
low it was not beautiful — the line where it 
joined the ear was mean and sinewy. One 
could not imagine a lover wanting to kiss 
Florrie on her throat. 

When the ladies rose to leave the room Con- 
way, as was his wont, held the door open for 
them. But Alethea did not pass through with 
[ 45 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

the rest, and lingering to speak to Sarah, 
heard Conway’s low voice beside her. 

“ I’m going out now, but I want to see you a 
moment after I get back.” 

“Very well,” said Alethea. She touched the 
rose she wore lightly, and looked at him with 
her rare, diamond sparkle. 

She heard the others talking in the drawing- 
room after he left. 

“So it was sugar we went without to- 
night!” What do you suppose she called him 
back for ? She was trying to make him look 
at her all dinner time; that’s what she put 
on that dress for. Well, she got left.” 

“It was very inappropriate for one in her 
position,” said Mrs. Meyers, with ponderous 
disapproval. 

“I thought it becoming,” said Miss Hon- 
ora, hesitatingly; but still her tone took on 
new interest — “they say Mr. Conway is very 
attentive to that Miss Bunny Schwartz; she 
sings in the choir, you know. ” 

“The idea! Attentive to her ! Why, he — ” 
Alethea escaped before the last words could 
reach her, smiling irrepressibly, as she had 
smiled over that glare of Malcolm Conway’s at 
Miss Meyers last night. But she had another 
reason for her lightsomeness — this was her 
[ 46 ] 


Paying Guests 


birthday, a fact unknown save by herself and 
one other. She had always had a particular 
feeling about her birthday; it had been a day 
of gladness to her all her life long; she had her 
own little secret observances of it. All those 
who had loved her from her birth were no 
longer upon this earth, but she felt no gloom 
to-day in the fact, but instead a sense of hap- 
piness in their unwonted nearness, the real 
though unseen presence of love. She wasn’t 
keeping a boarding-house; she was at the be- 
hest of no “paying guests” to-night; she was 
not owned by anybody — for a few hours she 
belonged to herself. 

Her very step had in it almost the insolence 
of wealth as she trailed through the halls. She 
was oblivious to the glances cast upon her as 
she sat by herself in the chill sitting-room oppo- 
site the drawing-room, reading. Miss Meyers 
drummed on the piano, with intermittent 
journeys to the window to look down the white 
and snowy street and wonder aloud why Mr. 
Conway did not come back. There was an 
inferential disquietude in her manner possi- 
bly traceable to the repudiated Miss Bunny 
Schwartz. The others inaugurated a game 
of whist with the table moved near the 
fire; it was a game scheduled two weeks 
[47l 


Little Stories of Courtship 

before by the Miss Cosletts, who planned 
their pleasures mathematically. Once Mrs. 
Meyers called over to Alethea and asked if she 
were not cold in there without anything around 
her, and there was an animated discussion as to 
what you had to wear to bed these nights ; Mrs. 
Brulwyne’s head, as most sensitive to chill, re- 
quiring a worsted shawl around it, while Mrs. 
Meyers protected her feet — which she de- 
scribed metaphorically as being “perfect ice- 
bergs” — with knitted shoes under the cov- 
ers and a weighting pillow atop. The Miss 
Cosletts, on the other hand, found it more 
what they needed to wear woolen wrappers 
that covered the back, though Sister was oc- 
casionally obliged to resort to a flannel around 
her throat, the reason for which was left in the 
dark owing to the discovery by Miss Honora, 
in gentle, but firm rebuke, that This was not 
Whist. 

At ten o’clock the players departed prompt- 
ly for bed, the unwilling Florrie called per- 
emptorily by her mother a half hour later. 
Each person who said good-night to Alethea 
asked her if she were not going up also, and 
she had replied, “Oh, yes, soon.” She waited 
until she heard the doors above locked for the 
night. Then she went in the other room, 
[ 48 ] 


Paying Guests 


turned down the light, and moved a big, old- 
fashioned easy chair nearer the wood fire. She 
put more logs on and poked them into a 
blaze, and then leaned back, watching it. She 
could never get used to the custom of going to 
bed just as the evening was beginning, and she 
was going to give herself a little luxury to- 
night. Probably Malcolm Conway had for- 
gotten his wish to speak to her, and wouldn’t 
be home until the clock struck twelve. A per- 
fectly causeless sense of well-being possessed 
her; she was calmly happy, although she was 
alone in the world save for a negligent brother 
and a disaffected sister-in-law across the seas; 
she was surrounded by people who regarded 
her actions solely in the light of their mone- 
tary value to themselves ; kind Mrs. Fort, 
who had been thirty years “at it,” was the 
only person who had really tried to help her. 
She was incapable of fulfilling that which she 
had undertaken; you couldn’t ask people to 
pay for being experimented on! She was 
doomed to failure in this project, she didn’t 
dare look at her accounts, all the misery, the 
anxiety, the degradation, grew like a grey 
wall closer and closer around her with each 
returning day, and yet — for a little space the 
old life had come to her. Alone in the empty 
[ 49 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

room in this cozy chair by the firelight, in her 
soft gown, her daintily slippered feet pushed 
out toward the fire, the red, red rose at her 
bosom, she went back through the years for 
the glamour that love had always thrown 
around her birthday. The look of it was in her 
eyes as she raised them with that little radiant, 
welcoming smile through their dreaminess, 
when the front door unlatched and Malcolm 
Conway came in. She did not move or speak 
as he divested himself of overcoat and hat. 

Almost ludicrously repelled by any sign of 
preoccupation or indifference, no man on 
earth was quicker to perceive and respond to 
the receptive mood in one he liked. The bril- 
liant smile which leaped to his eyes was of 
forty-candle power compared with her little 
softly glimmering rush-light as he drew up 
another easy chair beside hers, and sat down. 

“I ought to go up to bed, you know,” she 
said, basking happily in his radiance. 

“Yes, but you are not going to.” 

“If Mrs. Meyers hears us — ” 

“ For Heaven’s sake ! forget the Meyerses. ” 
His tone was so disgusted that Alethea has- 
tened to placate: 

“The roses were so lovely.” She caressed 
the one at her belt and her glance thanked him 
[50] 


Paying Guests 

sweetly. “ How did you know it was my birth- 
day ?” 

“I saw the date in a book I took up yes- 
terday; I’m glad you liked the flowers. ,, 

“I have the others upstairs; you see I 
didn’t put them on the table.” 

“I should hope not. If you had — ” 

They both laughed. They seemed to have 
dropped into an intimacy that needed no 
explanation, that was as if it had always 
belonged to them, and only lapsed for a 
while. He looked at her with an air of satis- 
faction. 

“Red roses are becoming to you. You’ve 
heard that before, though, many times. ” 

“I should have missed it if you hadn’t said 
it,” said Alethea, simply, still with the rare 
diamond sparkle. 

“ It was kind of you to wait for me. ” 

“I didn’t. I don’t know, perhaps I did.” 

“May I look at this ?” He touched the wrist 
that was shielded by the velvet. She held it out 
to him, and he untied the ribbon, looking with 
compressed lips and black and lowering 
brows, at the long, red mark, before he re- 
placed the band, though he said nothing. 
Then he rose and turned the gas still lower, so 
that it was only a flickering pin-point, and 
[5i] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


seated himself once more by her in front of the 
fire, with a return to his former manner. 

“Now isn’t this cozy! — What in thunder’s 
that?” 

“ It’s Mrs. Meyers in the room above, ” 
answered Alethea. 

“She rambles about like an elephant, 
doesn’t she ?” said Conway carelessly. “Heav- 
ens and earth! Is the house falling down ?” 

“No, she’s only moving her furniture,” 
said Alethea. “She often does it when she can’t 
sleep. Hark! She isn’t unlocking the door, is 
she?” Alethea stood up nervously. “Suppose 
she should come down here?” 

“She won’t — it’s too late,” said Conway 
with confidence. 

“Too late! Oh! then, if she did — what 
would she think?” Alethea stopped and 
turned horrified eyes upon him. “I must go 
up *” 

“No, it’s all right now,” said Conway, 
after a moment’s listening. His thin face with 
the firm lips relaxed, the dark, deep-set eyes 
seemed to glow from within. His pleasure 
made it impossible for her to chill it, but 
she murmured uneasily, “we must talk very 
softly.” 

“So you are thirty,” he announced, still 
152 ] 


Paying Guests 


looking at her. The words were brusque, but 
the tone subtly caressed; it said: “You are 
thirty and beautiful and young.” “ I know 
your age, you see, as well as the day. IPs just a 
year less than mine, but no one would ever 
dream it. ” 

“Ah, but for a man /” said Alethea. “Your 
life is just beginning; you have your career 
before you. I suppose a married woman of 
thirty would be young, too, but I — I always 
thought Fd mind, but I don't, not at all. I 
sometimes wish I were a very great deal older.” 
Her voice sank almost to a whisper for a mo- 
ment and she looked at him with a sudden 
scared helplessness that subsided gradually as 
it met the reassuring confidence in his eyes. 
Her look of dependence on him, this helpless- 
ness which required reassuring, was to Con- 
way the dearest, the most touching expression 
a woman’s face could wear. All the manhood 
in him longed to spring to her protection. He 
wondered — 

“Why haven’t you married?” he asked, 
abruptly. 

She smiled. “ I was engaged once. ” 

“ Well, aren’t you going to tell me about it ?” 

“I don’t see why.” She meditated. “But 
there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. I was very 
[ 53 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


young. He was a nice boy, and very good 
looking, but he was very jealous of me, and I 
didn’t understand. He couldn’t dance himself 
and if I danced with anybody else he wouldn’t 
speak to me.” 

“Nice, unselfish kind of a brute,” said 
Conway. 

“And once I waltzed half the evening with 
my cousin, a fellow from the South, and Hor- 
ace left without waiting to take me home. We 
had a quarrel. He said he would never come to 
see me again until I sent for him, and I didn’t 
send. I did feel dreadfully about it, but after 
all it was a relief. ” 

“I should say so,” said Conway, energetic- 
ally. 

“And after that?” 

Alethea laughed. “Oh, there were people — ! 
I have always known men.” 

“Whom you refused ?” 

“ Oh, no — nothing as far as that — there was 
a German count who proposed for me once, 
but when he found I hadn’t enough money he 
gracefully retired. Of course, it’s the custom 
there — but he was disappointed. ” 

“Sad,” said Conway dryly. He hesitated, 
and then asked in a particularly casual tone to 
cover his audacity, “And have you never real- 
[ 54 ] 


Paying Guests 


ly cared for anybody ?” He couldn’t help be- 
ing curious, she seemed so sweetly and un- 
affected virginal in spite of her experience of 
the world. 

The colour rose to her face and overspread 
it. She covered her eyes with her hand for a 
moment, but when she lifted them they had a 
thoughtful serenity. 

“ I don’t know whether a man would call it 
caring. I’ve had my dreams, like every one else. 
There was some one — I only met him a few 
times — he never thought of me that way, and 
I knew he didn’t. But I have always been glad 
I knew him; it put something into my life — ” 
she hesitated again — “that I might have 
gone without.” 

“No,” said Conway, “I don’t think a 
man would call that caring — much.” His 
voice had a cheerful ring in it, although he 
found he had a dislike to pursuing the sub- 
ject. “A man could feel that way to a good 
many women. ” 

“To Miss Meyers, for instance?” asked 
Alethea, with a sudden feline impulse. 

“Oh,” said Conway savagely. A dull red 
flushed his face. “She’s — the limit” He 
shook himself as if to get physically free. 

Alethea hastened to interpose. “You haven’t 
[ 55 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


told me any of your heart history. ” The fire- 
light was in her hair and in her eyes now. 

“I haven’t any.” 

“That means, of course, that you’ve been 
falling in love off and on ever since you were 
in frocks.” 

Conway laughed. “ Just about. ” 

“And have been engaged half a dozen 
times. ” 

“No, once was enough.” 

“And why — ?” 

“She threw me over.” 

“Oh!” said Alethea, with unconscious re- 
sentment in her tone. “Didn’t you — mind?” 

“Yes, of course I minded. I was a fool. 
I’ve been glad since — after a fashion. She 
wouldn’t have suited me now, I suppose. Still, 
I don’t know that it’s any advantage to get 
more and more critical as one gets older. My 
brother and sisters and nearly all my friends 
are married. The boy-and-girl-marriages are, 
perhaps, the best after all. ” 

“Yes,” said Alethea. “There was Isabel 
Carleton,” she added. 

“Yes, there was Isabel — she was a nice 
girl.” He spoke heartily. “I’m awfully glad 
she’s got such a good fellow.” He went on 
thoughtfully: “One is apt to lose the trick of 
[ 56 ] 


Paying Guests 


really falling in love after a while, I suppose. 
. . . It’s a pity. I’m used to sliding down the 
track just so far, and no farther; to save my 
soul I can’t get past a certain point. Yet there 
are times — ” his eyes dwelt on her with a 
new mischievousness in them, tenderly, re- 
liantly intimate with something more beneath 
— “ there are times — ” 

An entirely unexpected exhilaration pos- 
sessed him as he looked at her lying back in 
the chair, her soft trailing gown, the white 
hands clasping in her lap, the red rose at her 
breast, her soft hair, her soft eyes, the mingled 
glow and sparkle of her face. He changed his 
tone abruptly. 

“How long are you going to keep up this 
murderous farce of taking boarders ? You are 
the most ludicrously incompetent person Fve 
ever seen.” 

“Oh, don’t speak so loud,” exclaimed 
Alethea nervously. “We must go upstairs. 
What are you doing?” 

“I want to play on the piano,” said 
Conway, straying over towards it. 

“No, no, you mustn’t,” said Alethea, in 
alarm. 

He seemed capable of anything. 

“Sit down, then, we haven’t had our talk 
[ 57 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

out. ” He looked so extraordinarily boyish and 
happy that she gave way again, though she 
was sure that she heard sounds above. 

“I didn’t show you the letter I spoke of. 
My friend is all right now, and is coming back 
for Sunday to take up his duties. I ought to get 
off to-morrow, but I cannot leave you without 
— Hark! What’s that?” 

“Something fell,” whispered Alethea. 
“Listen!” 

“Was that her door unlocked ?” 

“Yes.” 

“Hark! Great Heavens, is she coming 
down ?” 

A ponderous footstep had already begun to 
descend the long stairs, with a lighter one be- 
hind it. The eyes of Conway and Alethea met 
as they both rose. Then he pushed the chairs 
away from each other with incredible swift- 
ness, turned out the glimmer of gas, and the 
two, moved by one impulse, fled noiselessly on 
tiptoe back through the dining-room to the 
kitchen, standing there breathlessly in the 
darkness. Conway put out his hand and 
touched Alethea’s face. He let his fingers linger 
there a moment. “I wasn’t sure it was you,” 
he murmured frivolously. 

“Hush,” whispered Alethea. A voice from 
[ 58 ] 


Paying Guests 


beyond reached them: “See if the front door’s 
fastened, Florence. The idea of leaving the 
fire here; we might be burned in our beds!” 

The light of a candle, held unsteadily, wav- 
ered into view. It was coming through the 
dining-room, toward the kitchen! 

“Here!” breathed Alethea. Her fingers 
swiftly unbolted the cellar door and drew him 
blindly after her down the cellar stairs over 
toward the coal bin. They were none too 
soon, as the words of Mrs. Meyers showed. 

“The cellar door open — such carelessness 
I never saw! The house might be full of thieves 
and robbers, and probably is. You may say 
what you please, Florrie, I know I heard 
breathing. ” 

“Mother, don’t go down there!” pleaded a 
weary voice, the voice of Florrie. “ I wish you’d 
come upstairs and let me go to sleep. ” 

“Florence Meyers, hold your tongue! You 
will go where I do.” A heavy step on the 
creaking, wooden stairs was heralded by the 
light of the candle, which finally brought into 
the view of those crouching back in the dark- 
ness a weird and ferocious figure of strange 
shape, clad in a long and woolly gown. The 
features of Mrs. Meyers were at no time melt- 
ing, but they had now an extraordinarily pro- 
[ 59 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


nounced appearance, her Roman nose and 
double chin being framed by two little grey 
wisps of braided hair fastened neatly at 
the ends, at either side of her head, instead 
of the high roll with which it was usually 
topped. 

Conway’s arm drew Alethea further back 
into the shadow of the coal bin in the face of 
the advancing light. There was a ludicrously 
poignant movement. Another six inches — 

There was a pause. Then the candle light 
wavered backward and the creaking step re- 
ceded with it. A moment more — the door 
closed, and the bolt was shot into place at the 
head of the cellar stairs. “If there’s anybody 
down there they can stay there, ’’proclaimed 
the voice of Mrs. Meyers. 



ELL this is a fix,” said Conway, short- 


' " 1 y, after a moment or two of listening 

to hear the sound of the retreating footsteps 
above. His hand dropped from its hold on Ale- 
thea’s as he took a match from his case and 
lighted it to view the scene. 

Alethea still had the sentiment of girlhood, 
which, once set springing, maintains its cur- 
rent through any environment, however un- 
romantic. She had been conscious of partner- 


[ 60 ] 


Paying Guests 


ship in a gay and perilous pleasure, with that 
secret daring which was one of her unsus- 
pected characteristics, and was quick now to 
feel the withdrawal of his mood. 

For Conway’s sentiment was that of a man 
of thirty, who has its manifestations under dis- 
tinct control; he takes it up or leaves it off at 
will. In the present instance the tender tone of 
a moment before had entirely left him, as she 
sensitively felt; he had, in fact, all the irrita- 
tion of the man who has let a woman get into 
an awkward situation; he would have charac- 
terized another fellow as a “jay.” 

The lighted match revealed a black, cavern- 
ous depth, with the black pillar of the furnace 
rising in the midst, and the black gleam of 
coal heaps at either side. The fire in the fur- 
nace had been deadened for the night, and 
was black, too. Another and yet another match 
showed that there were no windows in this 
section but a narrow slit banked up fast with 
snow, and a slanting cellar door, padlocked 
on the outside, as both remembered, in the 
old-fashioned way. 

“You can’t open it,” said Alethea. 

Conway made no answer, he was studying 
the door thoughtfully, and fingering the big, 
rusty hinges on the inside. Then he went back 
[ 61 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


into the cavern, his presence only to be inferred 
from the intermittent spark of the match; 
when he came back he was carrying something. 

“Now you can take the case and light the 
matches for me,” he said in a tone of satis- 
faction that seemed to make her a partner in it 
once more. “ Don’t burn your fingers. ” 

She saw that he had a hatchet. “You’re not 
going to chop the door down ? ” 

“No, that would make too much noise. 
You’ll see! I wish I had something better, 
but this will have to do.” 

He slipped the edge of the hatchet into one 
of the large screws in the hinge like an enor- 
mous screw-driver, turning it half way and 
taking it out, so that he could turn it again, 
patiently putting it back if it slipped, with his 
eyes fixed in one place. Alethea saw him 
bending over and turning his hatchet, and 
still bending, through the volcanic waves of 
darkness set in motion by her taper match. 
Presently something clinked upon the floor, 
where he had thrown it. 

“One screw out,” he said tersely. 

“How many more ?” 

“Two in this hinge, three in the next.” 
“There are only two matches left,” said 
Alethea. 


[62] 


Paying Guests 

“ Never mind, I can feel my way now all 
right.” 

She stood for what seemed a long time, 
hearing him breathe and hearing the recur- 
rent slips of the hatchet, while he worked and 
worked and gave no sign. But at last he said 
cheerily. “ It’s all right, now. ” 

The next minute he had bent the door out- 
ward, and helped her up the steps, and straight 
out on to the dazzling crust of the snow under 
a moon that poured its high light down upon 
them from the heavens. They stood enthralled 
and speechless. 

It all looked traditionally pure and peace- 
ful, and very cold. The forms of Conway and 
Alethea made long, blue shadows upon the icy 
waste, but they themselves took on a poignant 
and fantastic beauty between this glittering 
white expanse of snow and the gleaming 
white radiance above. His lithe, well-knit, 
straight figure had the lines and the poise of 
the song-heroes, as he threw his head back and 
lifted his face to the moonlight. His lips lost 
the mould of deliberateness or that other cast 
of humour, and became gentle and very sweet; 
his eyes showed the rays from the fire within. 
Alethea’s trailing black dress lay upon the 
snow, her head drooped a little, her wavy hair 
[63] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

had become loosened in this wild flight, and 
lay in curling tendrils against her cheek and 
the bare white circle of her throat; the atmos- 
phere of delicate brightness around her, ever 
to be felt, seemed actually visible. Neither 
seemed to look at the other; it was like the 
spirit translation which needs no material 
means of sense. A bloom even lay upon the 
cold, which kept it from being felt. There was 
only a white, intoxicating, sparkling joy. 

“It’s great, isn’t it?” said Conway, after 
some moments, drawing a long breath. He 
turned his eyes upon her for a fleeting instant 
and shifted them again, as if the beauty were 
too deep. She did not know whether she had 
answered or not. The burden of each thought 
was far away from the other, yet they were 
one in the unison of it; the keynote of this 
moonlight sonata was the words, “I remem- 
ber. ” Strange that to remember a past should 
seem to make the future one! 

“You haven’t a thing around you.” said 
Conway. His voice sounded odd in this white 
stillness. He began to take off his coat. 

“No!” protested Alethea, daintily shrugging 
her shoulders. 

“Nonsense!” He wrapped it around her 
with an air of tenderly passionate possession, 
[64] 


Paying Guests 

a caress in his finger tips, lifting a strand of 
hair elaborately out of the way of the garment. 
Her hair was always a lovely thing, softly 
curling and smelling of violets. 

“Of course you’re in slippers — on such a 
night! Just like a woman. Here, stand on the 
back steps; they’re clear of snow. I’m going 
to reconnoitre.” 

He came back to say: “The windows are 
bolted all too well. Do you know what time it 
is?” 

“No,” said Alethea, smiling starrily, with a 
potent faith in him not to be daunted; she had 
no care; this was his responsibility, not hers. 

“It’s a quarter to one. Hark, there’s the 
train; I’ll wait till it gets a little nearer.” 
He had mounted on an oil barrel below the 
window of the kitchen pantry and as the 
engine sent forth its long midnight screech 
she heard a simultaneous crash; a pane of 
glass had been knocked in. The window 
was pushed up, she saw him scramble up 
and through it. The door behind her was 
opened. 

“Come in,” said Conway, with the ring of 
relief in his words. 

Together they stole back through the house 
to the deserted drawing-room. The fire had 

[65] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

died down, only a few sparks remaining. Con- 
way noiselessly lighted the gas a little in the 
hall and sent a dim ray up the stairway. 

“We must go up very softly,” whispered 
Alethea. She put out her hand. “ Good- 
night. ” 

“All right, you go first, ” murmured Con- 
way. His voice had all the tenderness of a lover. 
“Good-night, good-night, liebste Freundin — 
sweetest friend.” He took her hand in his, and 
brushed the hair out of her eyes with the inti- 
mate protecting touch given to a child, and 
smiled at her with the relief of one who has 
passed a danger. He looked as if he must 
kiss her, but he did not. 

“Sleep well. ,, 

“Oh, I shall,” said Alethea. She bent over 
and slid off her high-heeled slippers, and 
holding them both in one hand, stole up the 
stairs noiselessly on her delicately stockinged 
feet, turning back when she neared the top to 
wave a last adieu. He watched her with his 
fingers on the gas burner, until she had gained 
the upper flight, then turned out the light and 
taking off his own shoes went up himself. His 
tone and his look had been the tone and the 
look of a lover, but he had said no lover’s 
word. During all his work he had felt her 
[ 66 ] 


Paying Guests 

presence headily near him; through the thrill 
of it he had wondered — 

Under the inherently impulsive, hot, boyish 
nature was the cool stratum of reason that 
makes the man. He must think this thing out 
for himself. 

“Sleep well, ,, he had said, but it was far 
into the morning when Alethea’s white eye- 
lids closed, with her arms crossed above her 
head. She was wakened it seemed all too soon 
by a knocking at the door, and the voice of 
Sarah. 

“There’s a man downstairs to see you about 
orderin’ ice for the summer, ma’am.” 

“Ice for the summer! Tell him I don’t 
want any.” She jumped out of bed with a 
sudden consternation. “A man to see ‘ me 
now ? Why, what time is it ?” 

“It’s goin’ on after nine o’clock, ma’am.” 

“Goodness!” said Alethea, beginning wild- 
ly to dress. “I’ll be down in a few minutes, 
Sarah. Is everything all right downstairs ?” 

“No, ma’am, it is not.” 

“What? Where’s Bridget?” 

“She’s afther havin’ a sort of a fit, ma’am.” 
“A fit?” 

“Well, not exactly a fit — but a sort of a fit, 
like.” It was Sarah’s mill-stream utterance 

[67] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


now. “When I come down to the kitchen the 
range was black out; the man he haven’t 
sent the grate yet — an’ Bridget lyin’ her 
len’th on the floor, as you might say uncon- 
scious-like. It took meself and Mr. Conway 
holdin’ her to keep her from weltin’ herself 
with her two hands, and doin’ herself an in- 
jury. He’s afther sendin’ her sister’s little boy 
for her now, on his own way to the early 
train.” 

“ Mr. Conway gone ?” 

“Yes, ma’am. He says if the express comes 
for his trunk will you give it to ’em. He’s 
afther leavin’ for good. But the ladies is all 
sittin’ below this long time, waitin’ for 
their breakfast, with Mrs. Brulwyne goin’ on 
awful , and not a wink of sleep among ’em 
last night by reason of the burglars.” 

“Burglars!” said Alethea, guiltily. 

“Yes, ma’am. They broke the long win- 
dow in the pantry and the cellar door is 
wrenched.” 

“Why on earth didn’t you wake me be- 
fore ?” groaned Alethea. 

“I didn’t like to be disturbin’ you,” said 
the futile Sarah. 

As Sarah went down, a hurried footstep came 
up. There was another knock at the door. 


Paying Guests 


“ Miss Bennett ? ” 

“Yes, Miss Honora, Iil be down in a 
minute.” 

“ If you could kindly let us know where the 
alcohol is so that I could heat some milk in 
the chafing-dish for Sister.” Miss Coslett’s 
voice was agitated. “She is getting a little 
faint.” 

“Make Sarah get it for you,” ordered Ale- 
thea in a firm voice. “She knows where it is, 
and I will be down at once” 

Oh, but the birthday glamour had left with 
a vengeance! Conway had not only gone off 
early to avoid seeing her, but he was to send 
for his trunk; he must then be going to leave 
for good, as Sarah said, and without further 
farewell. How could it be possible ? Yet such 
things were — a hundred instances returned 
to her. Men did such things! A chill and bitter 
contempt for herself, for him, for all the soft 
thoughts and palpitating fancies of the night 
before, iced the blood that flowed to her heart 
and aged her by ten years. She felt at once in- 
describably cheapened and revolted as the 
swift thoughts hurtled through her mind, 
making her fingers shake ineffectively as they 
tried to hook and tie. No, he would not go 
without any word — she would hear from him 

[69] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


after a fashion. She could picture Florrie’s 
saying that he wasn’t the kind of a gentle- 
man to skip his board, he would send her 
a cheque. Ah, but her pride was whipped 
bare! 

She slipped downstairs past the stony vi- 
sages in the drawing-room, and hurried to see 
about serving what she could, setting different 
things upon the table, with Sarah following 
her and plucking inanely at whatever she 
touched. 

“Miss Bennett!” 

“Yes, Mrs. Brulwyne.” There was a new 
tone in Alethea’s voice. She dropped down 
into her place by the table, and faced her ac- 
cusers. Mrs. Brulwyne’s huddled slop-shop 
gown, her small, dark, protruding face, her 
narrow, vindictive eyes and old, misshapen 
lips brought the turning point. 

“When will breakfast be ready ?” 

“There will be no more breakfast than 
this,” said Alethea, calmly. She pointed to 
some uncooked cereals and bread, and a 
pitcher of milk. 

“ What?” 

“It’s ready now, all there is.” She raised 
her voice to the other room. “Will you kindly 
come in now ? I can cook eggs in the chafing- 
[ 7 ° 1 


Paying Guests 


dish, but anything more is unfortunately im- 
possible. There is no fire.” 

“Eggs cooked in the chafing-dish sound 
very appetizing,” murmured Miss Coslett, 
wan, but considerate always. 

“This is no breakfast!” said Mrs. Brul- 
wyne, passionately. “My son-in-law pays for 
my breakfast, and I won’t be cheated out of 
it. I’ll not stay another day. I’ll have the law 
on you! I’ll have you arrested for getting 
money under false pretences. I call Mrs. Mey- 
ers to witness — ” 

“Pray madam, let my name alone,” cried 
Mrs. Meyers, quivering with wrath. Mrs. 
Meyers looked grey, the deep lines in her face 
seemed to have sunken by an inch. She ad- 
dressed herself to Alethea. 

“It is a great mistake, a very great mistake, 
Miss Bennett, let me tell you, to take persons 
of this class under your roof. When their 
own relatives cannot stand their table man- 
ners, other people of refinement should not be 
called upon to endure them. Florrie knows 
the struggle I have had with myself repeat- 
edly before I could make up my mind to sit at 
the table with Mrs. Brulwyne. I have been 
sorry for Mrs. Brulwyne on account of her 
daughter’s unnatural behaviour to her. I spent 
[7i 1 


Little Stories of Courtship 


one hour in her room yesterday trying to 
soothe the feelings of a neglected mother; but 
when she goes secretly into the kitchen as she 
did this morning and pours all the cream on 
saucer after saucer full of Shredded Screen- 
ings, as Sarah can testify, while my daughter 
Florence and I had been awake since mid- 
night, starving ” — Mrs. Meyers raised her 
handkerchief to her eyes in trembling agita- 
tion. 

“Yes, it’s very trying,” said Alethea. 

“But even if I could stand Mrs. Brulwyne 
any longer,” went on Mrs. Meyers, tumultu- 
ously, “even if I could stand the uncertainty 
about the meals — I have tried to make al- 
lowances, Miss Bennett, but when a person’s 
digestion is sensitive it has to be considered — 
even if I could stand all this, after the attempt 
on this house last night by burglars, I could 
not feel that it was safe for my daughter Flor- 
ence or myself to remain another night with- 
out a man in the house, now that Mr. Con- 
way has left so unexpectedly. Of course we 
took the rooms for the winter, but I must 
tell you that Florence has gone out now 
to inquire about getting accommodations at 
once” 

“I think you have all of you every justifica- 
[ 72 ] 


Paying Guests 

tion in leaving/’ agreed Alethea, with a polite 
smile. 

It was only what she expected when a little 
later Miss Honora’s gentle deprecating voice 
begged an audience of her. She was so sorry, 
but Sister’s health — she hoped Miss Ben- 
nett would forgive their very sudden moving, 
this morning, but as they were only having a 
holiday this week — 

“Why, yes,” said Alethea, “suit your own 
convenience.” 

It was all that she could expect, in her 
position, that people should suit their own 
convenience. 

“And of course,” said Miss Honora, simp- 
ly, “as we’re leaving without any warning — 
Sister and I know what it is to have to 
depend on one’s own resources — we want 
to pay ahead for the two weeks remaining 
in the month — my dear ! Now you mustn’t 
let the tears come in your eyes. It’s only 
customary.” 

“It may be customary with you,” said Ale- 
thea, with all her heart, “but I’ve given noth- 
ing really in exchange for what I’ve received 
from you already. I can’t take it, dear Miss 
Honora.” 

She forced the tears back, but the starved 
[ 73 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

heart felt its need the more after this crumb of 
comfort had been offered it. 

The day wore on amid preparation for and 
bustle of departure. Conway’s trunk went be- 
times; Alethea held the receipt for it. Bridget 
and the grate had both appeared at noon, but 
the paying guests had gone, the Meyerses to 
Mrs. Hurd’s. She had heard Mrs. Meyers 
confiding to Miss Coslett that there was a 
young gentleman who played the cornet at 
Mrs. Hurd’s, a Mr. Grooler, who was quite 
“gone on ” Florrie; and Miss Coslett had cap- 
ped the information with news interestedly 
gathered that morning, that Mr. Conway was 
reported to be engaged to a young widow in 
England, who had Money. 

She sat at last in her own room again, in the 
quiet and peace of the deserted house, before 
the friendly mirror, with her hair curling over 
the loose gown that bared her arms. It was 
with weary irritation that she heard a familiar 
knock. 

“What is it, Sarah ?” 

“It’s a letter for you, ma’am; Mr. Conway 
was after leavin’ it this morning and ’twas 
behind the clock I put it; it slipped me mind 
till this same minute.” 

“Oh!” said Alethea. 

[ 74 ] 


Paying Guests 

She took the missive, locked the door and 
sat down once more, looking, womanlike, 
again and again at the outside of it. It was in 
this that he would inform her courteously of 
his departure, having well bethought himself 
of the sentiment of the night before. She was 
glad at least that he should be courteous. It 
would probably contain a cheque. At the very 
thought the blood flamed. Not one penny 
of his had she ever touched; it lay as he had 
given it — cheques, after those first bills — 
in a box in her drawer. He didn’t know it, but 
he had been the one guest whose money had 
not paid — not paid for entertainment; it was 
her bread he had eaten. All the time, all the 
time, the thought of him — It seemed too bit- 
ter to be borne, that through poverty and jus- 
tice to those in whose debt she was, his money 
must be used now. Life — life — life — why 
should that one monosyllable beat upon her 
brain ? This was life, to never be anything 
more, to have neither youth nor money nor 
love, not even a friend; just life to struggle for 
and to be a failure in that struggle! If you 
couldn’t support yourself at ally what hap- 
pened ? If you couldn’t die when you wanted 
to? You’d have to! For a moment she faced 
the darkness — in the eyes reflected back to 
[ 75 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


her from the mirror that showed her a soft, 
hunted, frightened thing, thrust out from love, 
on whom the dogs of a mercenary war were 
let slip. 

Her blood reasserted itself. She sat up 
straight and opened the letter. 

Two hours later she was still re-reading it, 
this letter in which was no cheque, but only 
Malcolm Conway’s heart. He had written in 
the night watches, when the soul of a man 
may know itself and speak unhindered. That 
masterful joy that still spoke an inner hu- 
mility — those simple, almost boyish words 
that could be said to but one alone in this 
life — there were warm tears in her eyes, and 
a tremor on her lips. Ah, how quickly love can 
grow to starry heights, when the word of a 
man sets it springing! 

At the close he said: “If you consent, I can 
take you to-morrow to my cousin, Mrs. Mills, 
in town, whom I shall see to-day, and we can 
be married next week, and sail on Saturday, 
so that I can be at my post. It’s a prosaic woo- 
ing, dear, but at five o’clock this afternoon 
I’ll see you.” 

Alethea had taken one of the red roses from 
the vase again to fasten at the belt of her plain 
cloth gown, when Sarah knocked once more. 

[ 76 ] 


Paying Guests 


“Mr. Conway's below." 

No need to tell her that! It was the song 
of the trumpets, odd and sweet and compel- 
ling with the childlike heart of gladness in it. 
She came toward him with her swift gliding 
step as he sat at the piano, his hands upon 
the keys, the face with the deep-set eyes and 
fine bearded lips turned to her. The eyes took 
note of hers with that quick covert look she 
knew so well, only to change to triumph, to 
delight! If he kept on with the strain it was 
in subtle service to his sweet lady; it brought 
in vividest picture the emblazoned scene, the 
throng in St. Peter’s, the benediction, the blue 
sky of Rome above, and one thought to both. 

“Yes, we will see it together this year," he 
assented, smilingly, with a quick breath, and 
took his hands from the keys to throw his arm 
around her waist, and draw her gently down 
upon the seat beside him. There was all the 
exhilaration of a boy in the backward toss of 
his head as he murmured, with his joyous eyes 
upon her: 

“To see everything again with you l Ah, 
it’ll be great, won’t it ? ’’ 


[ 77 ] 




Henry 


•4 











r 







Henry 

A Humorous Love Story 


r " was in January that we got engaged, 
and I never saw any one so much in 
love as Henry was. I had been keep- 
ing company with him for about six months, 
but I never was quite certain in my mind 
that Henry wanted me until the words were 
said. I had no doubt after that. Now Joshua 
Gibson, he had a way of asking me to marry 
him, sort of free and careless-like, every week 
or so, and I’d answer him: “No, not at pres- 
ent,” as if ’twas all a joke. He was a jolly sort 
of a fellow, with red hair and blue eyes; real 
good company, though not handsome. 

Henry used never to take his dark eyes off 
my face, no matter whom I talked to, but he 
never said much. He was very tall, and thin, 
and a little yellow, because he hadn’t any 
digestion, and was never without pain. He 
would eat crullers because I made ’em, 
though I knew it hurt him awful. 

He was so quiet, as a general thing — 
except for sighing, which he did sometimes 
incessant — that I wasn’t prepared for the 
[ 81 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


burst of eloquence he let forth when once he'd 
made up his mind to ask me. He brought 
in the moon and stars, the planets and 
creeping things, Leviathan, that great beast, 
and the whole book of Job (for he was ever 
a great reader of Scripture) to prove how 
much he loved me; and when he got through 
he wept like a babe, and so did I. 

He was so overcome that he didn’t even 
kiss me until the third day was passed, and 
then he trembled so from top to toe, that I 
thought he’d faint, and wanted to go for a 
bottle of salts to use if ’twas necessary. But 
the action seemed to revive him instead, and 
after a while he got so that he’d just hold my 
hand and kiss it when he found himself going 
off, and it always brought him to. 

Henry’s mother and sisters came to see 
me, they were all tall and dark like him, but 
yellower, and they all worshipped him. They 
were from the South, their name was Gam- 
ble, and they thought a sight of themselves. 
They said no Gamble had ever married a 
Yankee before, but that Henry’s bride should 
be welcome. Aunt Martha was as polite as 
could be to them, but we were both glad 
when they went. 

Henry couldn’t bear to live away across the 
[82] 


Henry 


town from me, so he took a room just op- 
posite us, where he could see my goings out 
and my comings in. He always came over be- 
fore breakfast to find how I’d slept, and then 
afterwards on his way to work, and when he 
came home, and, of course, after supper. 

Sometimes we asked him to meals, but it 
was sort of uncomfortable, because he was 
always afraid I’d choke, or something. He 
made me promise not to eat fish, he was that 
afraid of bones, and if I had a glass of lemon- 
ade he’d ask me a dozen times if I was quite 
sure there weren’t any seeds in it. (He never 
ate much himself, unless it was lobster or 
cheese, his appetite was so delicate.) If I 
raked down the stove he was afraid I’d set 
myself afire, and if I ran upstairs he thought 
it might give me heart trouble, and if I ran 
down it scared him for fear I’d fall and break 
my neck. I never saw any one so careful about 
everything, and I would get all in a shake 
after a while, with taking such extra pains to 
keep from what was dangerous. 

He gave me a ring, but I was just a little 
disappointed, for I had set my heart on a 
solid gold one, with a stone in it. This was a 
black ring which he had cut out of a rubber 
button when he was ten years old — he 

[83] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

thought a sight of it, because he had made it 
himself, and I tried to. 

He was always bringing me presents of 
things he had when he was a boy; pieces of 
old stones, and bird’s nests, and willow whis- 
tles, and twisted nails, and acorns, and a 
broken jack-knife, and a potato his mother 
made him carry once for rheumatism. One 
day I was cleaning out my bureau drawers, 
and Aunt Martha came in, and when she saw 
all Henry’s treasures that he’d given me, ly- 
ing there, she just screeched out laughing, and 
for the life of me I couldn’t help joining in, 
though my face was as red as fire, and I 
wanted to pitch the things into the street. 

“Land sakes!” said she. “Annie Louise, 
can’t ye get a beau that’ll make ye better 
presents than those ? You’re a real good look- 
ing girl, though I do say it, with them light 
curls of yours, and your pretty blue eyes, and 
dimples, and don’t need to play second to 
nobody, but ye don’t seem to have no sense 
about Henry, if ye did graduate first at the 
High School.” 

“Don’t you like Henry, Aunt Martha?” 
said I, flaring right up. 

“Oh, um, I didn’t say that,” she grum- 
bled. “If you’re suited it’s nothing to me, and 
[84] 


Henry 


I guess he’s got enough money to keep you 
decent after you’re married, if he is close 
now.” 

When it came on May, Aunt Martha asked 
Henry when we were to be married, for she 
wanted to go off and make a visit in Penn- 
sylvania afterwards. Henry had always spoken 
of getting married in the spring, and I’d been 
making my wedding clothes all winter. Henry 
didn’t give her any real kind of answer; he 
said he would talk it over with me first. We 
didn’t intend to have any fine doings, he 
knew that, for I couldn’t afford it, and we’d 
settled to have the ceremony plain and private 
at home. 

But that evening, when we were sitting 
close on the side piazza and the mist was ris- 
ing up over the meadow, and the tree-toads 
were going on like mad down by the pond, 
he told me that he’d always had a dreadful 
queer feeling about getting married since he 
knew me. He said he loved me so much that 
he couldn’t get over the idea that there was 
a Doom about it, and he was sure certain 
that if the day was set, and him looking for- 
ward to it, that when the minister came and 
the words were to be spoken that made us 
one, he’d just drop down dead with joy be- 

[85] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

fore he could say, “Annie Louise I take 
thee!” 

“Well, then, aint we ever to be married ?” 
I said, a little huffy, though I could feel his 
form quiver with the tumultuous throbbings of 
his heart. 

Then he explained his plan to me. He 
said the dream of his life was to call me 
his, but it was the anticipation which 
his sensitive spirit could not stand. In- 
stead of setting the day he wanted to leave 
word with Dr. Macfarren to come in any 
evening that was convenient and marry us 
out of hand. It wouldn’t take but a minute 
after he once came, and it would be all 
over almost before we knew it was going 
to be done. 

I thought it was a mighty queer way of do- 
ing things, but he talked to me, low and fond- 
ly, until he made me see it all as he did, and 
then we set out for a month the like of which I 
think nobody ever went through before. Aunt 
Martha had a wedding cake made, and I 
packed my valise, for we had settled to go 
right into Jersey City the first thing, and from 
thence to Paterson to see Henry’s married 
sister, and the Falls (if they were falling) and 
I kept my blue duck suit, and white straw 
[ 86 ] 


Henry 


hat and gloves ready to put on and start off 
with at a moment’s notice. 

It was awful exciting, I can tell you. Every 
evening I wore my white dress, for I was set 
on being wedded in white, and sat on the 
piazza or in the parlour with Henry from 
eight till ten o’clock, waiting to hear the 
sound of Dr. Macfarren’s footsteps coming 
down the street. We couldn’t talk or even sit 
in comfort, for just as soon as we did begin to 
forget for a moment one or other of us would 
be sure to start and say, “What’s that 
sound?” or, “Didn’t you hear the gate 
click ?” and then we would watch and listen 
again. 

Henry always came at half-past seven — 
he didn’t visit with me in the daytime any 
more, he was working so hard — and he al- 
ways whispered as he embraced me: 

“I feel that we shall seal the bond to-night, 
Annie Louise!” and if he spoke at all after- 
wards it was about the shortness and uncer- 
tainty of human life, and the vanity of our 
wishes. When he left, at half-past ten, for 
Aunt Martha was very strict, he would be so 
affected at the parting that it was a real relief 
to me to see him the next evening looking as if 
he didn’t enjoy any poorer health than usual. 

[87] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

I couldn’t do a thing that was useful in the 
daytime, but keep my white frock washed and 
ironed to be fresh enough to wear every eve- 
ning, and set the parlour to rights, so that ev- 
erything would be in order for the ceremony, 
for there were two or three neighbours in the 
street who expected to come over when the 
knot was tied. But I couldn’t sew a stitch, 
nor do any housework, nor read any of the 
novels I got from the library, real elegant 
ones, and just what I’d always liked before. 
I did want to go to Coney Island once or 
twice, to get out of sight of the parlour and the 
leather bag and my wedding clothes, but 
Henry was too awful fearful of boats to have 
me go on one, and we might miss the minister. 
I got so that I sat in my room a good deal and 
cried; life seemed so sort of solemn, and real, 
with Henry. 

Those evenings, oh, those evenings! The 
neighbours began to snicker when Henry 
passed down the street, and Aunt Martha 
was furious, and I didn’t have any more appe- 
tite than Henry, and got so nervous and shak- 
ing I thought I’d go wild. Aunt Martha said 
that Dr. Macfarren had forgotten all about 
us, and she made Henry go and leave word 
again. We found then that he had been away 
[ 88 ] 


Henry 


on a vacation, but he promised to come 
around the first chance he got. 

Two or three nights afterwards Mrs. Leg- 
gett’s little boy came to get some of Aunt 
Martha’s cough syrup for the baby. While 
Aunt Martha was making it up. I told him 
I’d go around to his house with it, for he had 
another errand, and I was so wild I felt as if 
I must go out for a minute. 

Henry looked at me sort of queer, but he 
didn’t make any objection; he offered to 
come with me, but I told him it was too damp 
for him, and I wouldn’t be a moment. 

I was gone a little longer than I intended, 
for who should I meet on the way but Joshua 
Gibson. I hadn’t seen him hardly any since 
I was engaged, and he seemed real glad to 
stop and talk a little, though he watched 
me kind of curious, I thought. When I ran 
in the house Aunt Martha was rocking 
backward and forward in her chair, and cry- 
ing. 

Henry looked agitated, and he opened his 
arms and folded me in them in a solemn em- 
brace. 

“Oh, stop that!” says Aunt Martha. “The 
minister’s been here, and you out, Annie 
Louise! I never see no such doings, not in all 

[89] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


my born days. We’ll be the laughing stock of 
the whole place.” 

“Why didn’t you keep him ?” I said, turn- 
ing hot and cold, “You knew I was coming 
back!” 

Henry shook his head sadly. “He was on 
his way to visit the sick, and had only a few 
minutes to spare for us. This is a cruel, cruel 
blow, my own heart’s treasure!” 

He staggered, but I didn’t take any notice 
of him, and just went and hung up my hat on 
a nail. 

“We needn’t sit up any longer, that’s one 
good thing,” I said. “Good-night, Henry 
Gamble!” 

I didn’t sleep much that night, for I 
couldn’t get it out of my head that Henry had 
known all the time that Dr. Macfarren was 
coming, and I felt sick. Did he want to marry 
me, or did he not ? 

The next evening, however, Henry seemed 
more wrapped up in me than ever. He brought 
the wedding ring in his pocket and made me 
try it on, and though it was pretty big, it was 
real nice. Aunt Martha wanted to up and tell 
him there was to be no more shilly-shallying, 
but I wouldn’t let her. 

Thursday night I felt just as if something 
[90] 


Henry 


was going to happen. The moon was big and 
golden, and the air was soft and warm. 

I did up my hair on top of my head, with 
a lot of cute little curls on my forehead, and 
put on that everlasting white dress again with 
the white satin belt, and it seemed for once as if 
there might something come of it at last. But 
after supper I had a note from Henry, saying 
that his mother was ill, and had sent for 
him, and he wouldn’t be able to see me until 
the next day. A boy had brought the note, and 
while I was standing on the front steps read- 
ing it, who should come past but Dr. Mac- 
farren. He took off* his hat and said: 

“Ah, Miss Price, you are all ready, I see! 
I wish I could stop now, but I will be with 
you later, without fail.” 

“JVbat!” said I. 

“I told Mr. Gamble only a few moments 
ago that I would perform the ceremony at 
half-past nine this evening,” he continued, “so 
good-bye until then, Miss Price.” 

I rushed down the yard to the lilac-bushes, 
where Aunt Martha couldn’t see me, and hid 
my face in the leaves. What did it mean ? I 
just choked, and began to tremble so that I 
thought I should fall, when I felt a manly arm 
steal around my waist. I thought ’twas Henry, 

[91 1 


Little Stories of Courtship 


but when I looked up, if it wasn’t Joshua 
Gibson! 

“Why Josh!” I said faintly. He looked so 
wholesome, and kind, and like old times, 
that I just put my head on his shoulder and 
let it stay there for a couple of minutes, while 
he patted me in a comfortable way that did 
me good. 

“Now,” he said, “Annie Louise, I heard 
you talking to the minister, and I saw you 
felt so bad that I couldn’t help following after 
you. There’s something up, and I want you 
to tell me what ’tis. Ain’t I been watching ye 
for a month past, and seen you losing all 
your pretty colour, and getting thinner every 
day, and sort of scared-looking ? Why, I loved 
you long before that yellow-complected fool 
ever set eyes on you, and I thought you were 
going to love me too, before he came to hand. 
Tell me all about it!” 

Well, I did, I just told him the whole thing, 
and oh, it was a relief! I told him how careful 
Henry had always been of me, and about 
the presents, and the month we’d been wait- 
ing minute by minute, as one might say, 
to be married, and how the minister was 
coming to-night at last, and Henry had 
known it all the time, and had given me 
[92] 


Henry 

the slip; and when I finished I burst right 
out crying. 

“I made up my mind this afternoon,” said 
I, “that if I wasn’t married to-night, I never 
should be!” 

“You poor little soul,” said Josh, and oh, 
he was comforting, though I think he swore 
some under his breath, and he held me up 
strong. 

“As for that sneaking lizard, that — ” 

“Oh, Josh!” I cried. 

“I’m going to say it, Annie Louise; he’s 
a — ” Well, there, he did call Henry some 
real wicked names, and I knew I ought to be 
angry, but I wasn’t — I was glad. 

“Do you know,” said he, “that Henry 
Gamble is making up to that rich Mrs. Hun- 
ter that lives in Jay Street? She’s had two 
husbands already, and I reckon he thinks 
she’ll take him for the third. He stays there 
all day, he don’t do no work , he’s too lazy.” 

I began to tremble again, and when Josh 
spoke his voice was full tender. 

“See here, Sweety,” said he. “You don’t 
love that idiot any more, do you ?” 

I shook my head and sobbed. 

“Don’t you think you’re going to like me 
a sight better ?” 


[ 93 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


I nodded, and stopped crying, for there 
was something queer in his tone. 

“Then lets us get married this evening, 
Annie Louise, lovey, as long as you set this 
time in your mind for it, and the minister 
coming, and you shall have a wedding that’ll 
be a wedding, as sure as my name is Joshuay 
Gibson!” 

“ But Josh ! ” said I, leaning against him and 
starting to cry again. “He’s — he’s — kissed me 
lots of times, and you wouldn’t like that.” 

Josh gave a gulp, and then he says: 

“Well, I’m going to kiss you now, Annie 
Louise, I’m going to kiss you for all the rest 
of your life, if I have good luck, so that don’t 
cut no ice. And we’ll drop that subject for 
good and all, for ’taint healthy. We must go 
in the house now and tell Aunt Martha, and 
you get your things ready, quick.” 

“Oh, they are ready,” said I. I told him 
about the travelling dress and bag, and about 
the journey we were to have made into Jersey 
City, and from there to Paterson; and Josh 
slapped his hand on his knee and declared 
that it was all fine. 

Then we went back to Aunt Martha, and 
broke the news to her gently — at least we 
meant to. 


[ 94 ] 


Henry 


Aunt Martha couldn’t get it through her 
head, at first; her agitation certainly was 
great, but she came up to time afterwards, as 
Josh said. 

He left the house to make his preparations, 
and Oh, my! how we flew round. Aunt Mar- 
tha cried a little, but she hugged me, and she 
said. 

“Annie Louise, I’ve known Josh Gibson 
since he was a boy, and I’m glad you’ve got 
a man this time.” 

I went upstairs and took off my dress and 
fixed my hair all over again. Aunt Martha 
called out to know what I was doing and I 
said: 

“I put on my frock before for Henry, and 
I’m going to dress myself all over again for 
Josh.” 

I hadn’t hardly got dressed before there 
was a thundering knock at the door, and then 
another, and another. Oh, my, oh, my! How 
my heart did jump. If Josh hadn’t sent roast 
chickens and hams, and salad, and a tub of 
ice-cream, and a keg of beer. And next a whole 
army of men trooped in that belonged to 
Josh’s singing club; they had a meeting that 
night, and they adjourned to see him married. 
A crowd of people came up the street and 
[ 95 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


walked in, almost everybody in the neigh- 
bourhood, and when I looked out there was 
a row of Chinese lanterns hung on the front 
piazza that made it as light as day. 

And next Josh arrived, and he did look so 
handsome — he just beamed with happiness. 
He beckoned me into the kitchen, and took 
out of his pocket two velvet cases with rings 
in them. They were both solid gold and 
weighty, but one had three elegant red stones 
in it. 

“Ain’t that a sparkler?” he said. “That’s 
your engagement ring, Sweety; you see we’ve 
got to do it all up in a bunch, but I’m bound 
that you shall have all that’s right and proper. 
You’re the prettiest, and dearest, and sweet- 
est girl in the world, Annie Louise, and the 
trustingest; and you’ve got the right feller this 
time, one that’s going to do his level best to 
make you happy, if he knows it!” 

Then he kissed me once, solemnly, and Dr. 
Macfarren arrived to tie the nuptial knot. He 
looked surprised not to see Henry, but Josh 
took him aside and explained, and then Dr. 
Macfarren congratulated me, and seemed 
real hearty. 

So we were married. There had never been 
a wedding like it in town — such a supper, 
[ 96 ] 


Henry 


and such singing, as good as an opera. The 
Club sang “My Lady Lu,” and the “ Watch on 
the Rhine,” and “ Daisy ” and “ Oh, where 
and oh, where has my Little Dog Gone ” — * 
Josh told ’em to give us everything, ancient 
and modern, and I guess they did. We made 
the minister stay to supper, but he didn’t look 
quite easy, and left right afterwards; Aunt 
Martha said she thought he had a toothache. 

And then we danced — Oh, how we danced ! 
Josh and I were partners all the time, and the 
way that cornet played, with the concertina 
chiming in! All who couldn’t dance, beat time 
with their feet. 

It was nearly four o’clock in the morning 
before every one left, and Josh and I walked 
down to take the milk train for Jersey City. 
My blue duck suit was all covered with rice, 
and an old shoe had knocked Josh’s hat off, 
so that ’twas a little dusty, but we didn’t 
mind. Josh carried our two valises, and my 
feet felt as light as a feather, they were so in 
time with the dancing and the day was 
just dawning over the salt meadows, all 
fresh and sweet, and the birds were begin- 
ning to sing. 

I was so happy, without trying to think 
why, that I could hardly keep from little bub- 
[ 97 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


bles of laughter, and Josh looked at me, and 
said I matched the morning. 

“But why are we going to Jersey City?” 
said he, stopping suddenly, and letting the 
valises rest on the ground. 

“Why,” said I, “so we can go and see the 
Falls, and your — no, Henry s married sister, 
at Paterson!” 

“What!” says he, as mad as thunder, and 
then he burst into a roar of laughter. “If 
that isn’t the best I ever heard! Annie Louise, 
we ain’t running on Henry’s ticket this time. 
We won’t stop at Jersey City, we’ll go right 
over the ferry to New York and take the 
train for a real falls, and that’s Niagary. My 
week’s vacation’s just begun, and I’ve got a 
roll of bills in my trousers’ pocket to spend on 
my girl — and what does she say to that ?” 

I couldn’t say anything but Oh, Josh ! 
Though it seemed most too good to be true, 
for just then the train came lumbering in and 
we had to run to catch it. But as Josh pulled 
me up with him on the car platform, we 
looked back and there was Henry, with Mrs. 
Hunter, making for it, too. 

Josh said something — it was the worst 
I ever heard — and then he took a flying 
jump and lit on Henry. I ought to have been 
[98] 


Henry 


sorry, but I wasn’t; I was glad. But I shut my 
eyes, and when I opened them again Josh’s 
arm was around me, and the sweetest smile 
I ever saw upon a husband’s lips was on his. 


L&fC.? 


[99] 

















































♦ 

































I 





























When Love Is Kind 













' 

« 




■ 

















































1 





























































. 






















. 




















































































































. 





















































































































































When Love Is Kind 

A Problem Love Story 

O H, I thought you knew. She’s engaged to 
Mr. Lloyd — Harland Lloyd — per- 
haps you’ve seen him coming here. He’s 
a tall fellow with dark hair, and rather a set 
face until he smiles; then it lights up. I said to 
my daughter the other day: ‘Anna, Harland 
is really very good-looking when his face 
lights up!”’ 

Mrs. Lane fixed her eyes genially upon her 
visitor, a lady so stiffly encased in high-priced 
raiment as to present no other individuality 
than that of a formal caller. Kind Mrs. 
Lane’s family sometimes bewailed the fact 
that she had a startling lack of “company 
manners,” the quality of her unstrained con- 
fidences falling, like mercy, on all alike. She 
went on now with amiable generosity, after a 
polite murmur from the caller. 

“I tell you who he looks like, although 
Anna doesn’t like me to say it — it’s the ash- 
man, the one with the white teeth and the 
large family. He is always asking me for 
clothes for them. What was I talking about ? 

[ 103] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

. . . Oh, the dance, of course. I wish that 

Latimer — my oldest son, you know — was 
going to be home for it. It is really given 
for Anna and Mr. Lloyd; it will be their 
first appearance at anything of the kind to- 
gether since the engagement was announced. 
There were several places that they expected 
to go to before, but he was always prevented 
at the last moment; this time, however, the 
Wiltons changed the date especially to suit 
him, and it happens to be Anna’s birthday. 
She has been doing really nothing all the 
morning but looking at the pearl ornament 
he sent her. I never knew before what it 
was like to have a daughter engaged. I have 
only the one, you know. They are very de- 
voted — of course, that’s only to be expected, 
but it does take up a great deal of her time. 
Oh, Anna!” she called to the young girl who, 
with a companion, was passing lightly 
through the hall, with a mass of fluffy, 
white stuff in her arms. “Anna, come in, 
won’t you ? I think you’ve met Mrs. 
Wagner — and this is Anna’s friend, Miss 
Loring, who has come on from Boston for the 
dance. If you’ve been pressing your dress, 
Anna, I wish you’d bring it in and show it. 
Well, Anna, don’t look like that, Mrs, Wagner 
[ 104] 


When Love is Kind 


has daughters of her own, and I’m sure she 
likes to see pretty things as much as any of 
us.” 

“Yes, I shall be much pleased,” affirmed 
Mrs. Wagner, with a patronizing elegance 
that seemed to cover some surprise. 

“She made it all herself,” continued the 
mother, displaying the robe her daughter re- 
signedly handed her. “Don't you think that's 
a sweet idea, going off the shoulders that 
way?” She dropped her voice mysteriously. 
“You would never guess how much it was a 
yard — only twenty-five cents! Such a bargain. 
Of course, with Mr. Lane’s business affairs as 
they are at present, I don’t want people to 
think we're extravagant. Anna was so clever 
about fixing up this lace; I just said to her, 
‘Anna, if you go upstairs and look in one of the 
trunks in the tank-room, I’m sure you'll find 
an old dress of your cousin Louisa’s that — ' ” 

“If mother only wouldn't,” moaned Anna 
Lane, with her head pressed in the soft shoul- 
der of her friend, after the two girls had es- 
caped upstairs with the garment, She began 
to laugh in spite of herself. “Poor Mrs. Wag- 
ner! She looked so bewildered; she expected to 
see something really handsome after mother's 
praises.” 

[ 105] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


“The dress is lovely, anyway,” said Ethel 
comfortingly, “and it just suits you. Wait 
till Mr. Lloyd sees you in it.” 

“I hope he’ll like it,” said the other, a soft 
colour coming into her cheek. Every stitch in 
that gown had been taken with the thought of 
Harland in her very finger-ends. She did want 
to look lovely for him! He had good taste; he 
was no man-milliner, but he had the artistic 
sense of proportion and fitness which so many 
men possess to an unsuspected degree. Anna 
had divined the pleasure that certain har- 
monies gave him. This gown was simple, but 
the folds of the twenty-five cent material fell 
softly, the renovated lace had little pink rose- 
buds worked through its silky meshes, the 
white satin straps that held the bodice over 
her satin-white shoulders were worked with 
rosebuds, too. When the eyes of her lover first 
dwelt on her so attired — 

The thought was too much to be shared 
even in the company of Ethel. She went into 
the hall as if looking for something, and stood 
there in the shadows leaning against the wall. 
There was always something shadowy about 
Anna herself; her dark hair kept her down- 
dropped face in shadow, her long, long lashes 
made shadows on her cheek; a wilful, petu- 
[i°6] 


When Love is Kind 


lant, eluding personality, dangerously sweet, 
allured as through a dusky veil. But the 
veil was lifted for a moment now. She was 
so captured by love that it made her a little 
breathless; it showed her every present joy 
in the white, backward-reaching light of a joy 
to come. This was her birthday — the first 
birthday since she had been Harland’s — her 
future birthdays would be spent as his wife. 
The white gown her fingers had made was but 
the precursor of a wedding-gown; their first 
public appearance together but antedated 
their public appearance together in the cere- 
mony of marriage. If she had not spoken of 
all this to him, she knew that he understood. 
She was glad that he was a man, not a boy, 
with eight years more as a makeweight for 
her twenty. It was different with Ethel — she 
was provisionally engaged to a youth of her 
own age. 

“Do you think Jakey will get down from 
college ?” Anna asked of her friend, as she 
went back into the room. “Ed feel so sorry for 
you if he couldn’t manage it after all. ” 

Ethel raised her small, round face, of a de- 
ceptive candour, from the lacy underwaist in 
which she was running ribbons with a bodkin. 

“Do I think Jakey ’ll get here ? Well, you 


Little Stories of Courtship 

can just believe it. That’s why I brought that 
old blue dress to wear — it’s nearly in rags, 
but I always have the loveliest time when I’ve 
got it on. Jakey wants a piece of it for a sou- 
venir. Oh, he’ll come, even if he has to make 
‘cuts’ ruinously to do it — his supply must be 
about exhausted now. That’s one awfully 
dear thing about Jakey, he always keeps his 
word; he’s perfectly absurd and crazy, and all 
that sort of thing, but if he makes you a prom- 
ise he’ll keep it, through thick and thin.” 

“Well, of course,” said Anna temperately, 
looking through the shadow of the dark hair 
that she was brushing out over her rose- 
coloured dressing-gown. 

“No ‘of course’ at all! What do you think, 
last year he told a girl he’d take her to the 
races. I know she made him ask her. She was a 
horrid looking thing — as thin as a slat — and 
they missed the train, so he went and found a 
carriage and drove all that distance rather than 
disappoint her, though the man charged him 
thirty dollars , and he was down to his last five 
until the end of the month. But he was just as 
game as he could be; he said his watch was 
already ‘ doing time,’ so he got another fellow 
to pawn his and lend him the money. That’s 
the spirit I like in a man!” 

h°8] 


When Love is Kind 


“What is that you like in a man, dear?” 
inquired Mrs. Lane, coming into the room. 
“Here’s a box from the florist’s, Anna, roses 
from Harland — I just opened it to see, 
I thought you wouldn’t mind. Now, don’t be 
foolish. What difference does it make who 
sees them first ? And here’s something else 
that just came — a telegram — I sort of hated 
to bring it up to you, though I know it’s ab- 
surd to feel so in these days, when people send 
telegrams for everything. I suppose it is just 
more congratulations. Well ?” 

Anna was scanning the yellow paper she 
had unfolded, and looked up incredulously. 

“It’s from Harland. What does he mean? 
He can’t mean — he cant mean — that he 
isn’t coming!” 

“Give it to me,” cried Ethel, snatching the 
telegram from her. She read aloud: 

Have just been called to Philadelphia for important 
business meeting. Would have come to tell you, but must 
catch the six-thirty train. Very sorry not to be with you to- 
night. Will write on the train. 

H. Lloyd. 


“It certainly does mean that he isn’t com- 
ing,” said Ethel blankly. “It’s too bad, Anna. 
[ 109 1 


Little Stories of Courtship 


If Latimer were only at home! But, of course, 
you can go with your brother James.” 

“ He is going to take Gertrude. ” 

“You know you can come with us, any- 
way,” offered Ethel generously. “HI make 
Jakey give you some of the dances he has 
with me, and — ” 

“I won’t go at all!” cried Anna, with a 
heaving bosom. She ran down the hall and 
disappeared from view. 

“Have you been in there?” Mrs. Lane 
questioned mysteriously of Ethel, later. 

“I’ve been to the door, but she asked me 
not to come in,” replied the visitor, bare- 
armed, lustrous-eyed, and fragrant of violet, in 
the first stages of a “party” toilet, pleasantly 
secure from disappointment in her own case. 
The house had been given up to a hurried and 
spasmodic dinner in the tumult attending the 
advent of Mr. Jakey Van Dorn, which seemed 
to necessitate endless runnings up and down 
stairs, and into different rooms on the part of 
James, with occasional loud slamming of 
the front door, in the effort to supplement the 
wardrobe of his guest in the matter of collar- 
buttons and studs and clean linen and ties, 
Mr. Van Dorn having arrived hastily by train 
in an imperfect condition, with but three cents 
[iio] 


When Love is Kind 


and a postage stamp for negotiable purposes. 
Ethel was blissfully unconscious that the 
flowers which he presented to her were a 
token paid for with the last available funds 
of an obliging James. She lent her cheerful 
sympathy now to the perturbed mother, who 
continued: 

“ She'll have to go, you know, the Wiltons 
have put off this dance especially for her and 
Mr. Lloyd. Eve been talking to her, but I 
couldn’t seem to make any impression at all. 
She said she didn’t want to talk — she kept 
her face turned away in the pillow. I used 
every argument I could think of. Of course, it 
is disappointing, and I do think Harland 
might have managed things differently; it’s 
happened so many times before, though not 
quite like this, but he has never been able to 
go with her anywhere, and it is trying. When 
Anna sets her heart on anything, she wants it 
so dreadfully — It really uses me all up.” 
Poor Mrs. Lane’s eyes had a piteous appeal in 
them. To match the ache in Anna’s young 
breast was the almost worst ache of the 
mother, who can do nothing to heal her 
child’s hurt. In Anna’s young days the 
mother could have been her adjusting prov- 
idence, but the girl’s happiness had gone 
[in] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


beyond her keeping. She went on with forlorn 
distraction. 

“I told her if she expected to get married, 
she must get used to disappointments; many 
people had far worse ones. There was Cousin 
Louisa Grefe, she married such a fine-looking 
man, he came of a splendid family; his mother 
used to have a plantation in the South, and a 
coloured mammy who always called her Ole 
Miss. It was really beautiful to hear him talk 
of it, and after all he caught cold and got 
bronchial asthma, so that he had to sleep in a 
chair for fifteen years. And there was Hannah 
Peterson, who — But there was no use of my 
saying a word. Anna’s father thinks she is too 
foolish for anything, that it was the only thing 
Harland could do, if business called him. 
He’d have no respect for Harland if he hadn’t 
gone. ” 

“Oh, she’ll have to go to the dance,” said 
Ethel decidedly. “She will, you’ll see. She’ll 
have a good time, anyway. Of course, it won’t 
be what she expected — but she cannot be 
rude to the Wiltons. ” 

“That’s just what I told her,” said the anx- 
ious mother, endeavouring to reach some sus- 
taining comfort. “Perhaps you can have some 
influence with her, Ethel. Really, she was so 
[ " 2 ] 


When Love is Kind 


unresponsive that I had to tell her that I 
thought she might try to answer a little more 
pleasantly, and get over that habit she has of 
poking up one shoulder when she doesn’t want 
to hear. I’m sure I don’t know what excuse 
she would offer to the Wiltons, if — ” 

“Oh, she’ll go,” said the other again, 
patiently. 

It was a proud and beautiful Anna who 
came down, finally, in the white gown with the 
pink rosebuds to go to the Wiltons’s party — 
defiant of sympathy, cold to view, yet palpi- 
tating with a fiery pain. She was going out to 
be sympathized with for Harland’s defection, 
pitied and commented on for it, behind her 
back. 

“Do you suppose he cares for her so very 
much ?” she could hear the whispers. “It al- 
ways seemed to me it was more on her side. ” 

Yet not in the comments was the real sting, 
but the fact that he had exposed her to them 
— and that he was not with her She ran 
back after she had gone down the steps to 
give a fierce little contrite embrace to the lov- 
ing, helpless mother, with the words, wrung 
from her: 

“Don’t mind so much, mother. It isn’t 
worth it. ” 


[ 113] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

It was a slight thing in its way, this defec- 
tion of Harland’s, but it seemed to prefigure 
an endless difference between them — even 
those moments in which she did justice to his 
reason opened the vista down into a well of 
bitter waters. There was a world in which 
she had no rights. Her passionate young soul 
was racked in a way that seemed unbearable, 
a torture whose steel fangs pierced inward the 
more fiercely, the harder she tried to push it 
from her. In this comfortable, placid, com- 
monplace, home atmosphere, love had gripped 
hold of Anna as in the days of the Greeks, 
with the old, unmodern, overmastering power 
that shook her into exquisitely strange ex- 
altations and abysmal depths. 

As she had lain on the bed in the darkness, 
sullen to her mother’s pleading, jealousy of all 
of her lover’s life that was not hers was loom- 
ing into her, and the thirst to hear his voice 
when she needed it to still this unreasoning 
tumult, and the lack of any comfort from him 
until hours and hours and hours had passed, 
and his letter came. She imagined to herself 
his words of passionate regret that he had had 
to fail her — and his longing for her — poor 
little, shadowy-sweet Anna — who had been 
but a child so lately that she did not as yet 

[114] 


When Love is Kind 

know how to bear this new pain of being 
a woman; who must dance with it con- 
suming her, and lie down on her bed once 
more, after the long, glittering, waste hours 
of the ball, and rise up again in the morn- 
ing, still companied with it, against her sick 
will. 

Jakey Van Dorn — shining antithesis to 
Harland! chivalrously willing to ruin his 
prospects for any girl, went back to his studi- 
ous lair early, though Anna heard him go. 
She was listening for the postman’s whistle. 
There was no letter in any of the morning 
mails, though Mrs. Lane lay in wait for the 
postman herself, and announced loudly from 
afar the nature of the epistles delivered, in 
tones of eager cheerfulness, to forestall disap- 
pointed expectation, while Anna and Ethel 
talked over all the minutiae of the dance. But 
at last the letter from Harland came. Mrs. 
Lane, breathless and flushed with haste, 
handed one out of the sheaf to Anna, who dis- 
appeared with her treasure into the next 
room. It had come! She hungered for the 
opening words: “My darling , my darling , Fm 
so sorry , it hurt me more than you — ” oh, 
that would stop the pain! 

She opened the letter and read: 


Little Stories of Courtship 


Thursday, 8 p. m. On the train. 

My dearest girl: 

Here am I, going farther and farther from you, at the 
very time when I should be going to you. It's hard luck, 
isn’t it, that every one but me will see you in the pretty 
gown you told me you were making. Perhaps you’ll wear 
it for me some evening, will you ? And that will be better 
yet. 

I hope you’ll have just as good a time as you possibly 
can, and dance every dance. I trust you made all the 
proper apologies for me. Of course, I’m sorry not to be 
there, but, as far as I am concerned, I’d far rather spend 
an evening just with you, than waste it at a dance. ... I 
have been looking out of the window just here; it is very 
pretty in the moonlight. There is a woman in the seat in 
front of me who isn’t pretty, though — she has been 
nagging at her husband ever since we started. He must 
find it something awful. I can’t imagine what I’d do in 
his position — thank God, I’ll never know. Anna, when I 
think of you — I stop, and that is all that I can say — 
Anna>when I think of you! I never supposed, dear, that I 
could care so much — more than I’ve even tried to tell you. 
Just think, we might have been married for the last four 
years, if we’d only known each other sooner. What a 
waste of time! You will get this to-morrow, only a few 
hours before I see you, for I will get back to my rooms 
about seven o’clock to dinner, and will come to you as 
soon after as possible. 

Always yours, 

H. L. 

“Well, what does he say?” questioned 
Mrs. Lane interestedly, as Anna came into 
[n6| 


When Love is Kind 


the room. “ Come now, Anna, what does he 
say ?” 

“Nothing,” said Anna, “except that he 
expects to be here this evening.” Nothing 
indeed, but what he had said many times be- 
fore. The very fact that he did not seem to 
know that he had done her an injury but 
served to deepen it. It is one of the subtle and 
curious torments of love that what should be 
its bliss is so often its bane; no matter how 
deeply felt and expressive of the heart of 
the sender a love letter may be, if it falls short 
of the need love has set for it, it becomes only 
a stinging ill. 

“He’s coming to-night,” repeated Mrs. 
Lane, her eyes searching her daughter’s face 
for the longed-for signs of happiness. “Well, 
I’m sure, that’s very nice. Anna ! A nna ! Come 
back here a moment. I wish you’d go down- 
stairs and see if those seeded raisins came — 
the grocer forgot them the first time. Now, 
wait — I have not finished. Tell Susan if he 
doesn’t bring them soon, she cannot have the 
suet pudding for dinner, it takes so long to 
boil — yet I don’t know what else to have. 
See if you cannot find something in the cook- 
book that she can make quickly; we have 
plenty of milk. Now, Anna, I wish you 


Little Stories of Courtship 


wouldn’t look like that. Here you’ve had a 
letter from Harland, and he’s coming to- 
night, and — If you’d only take a little more 
interest in the house, it would be far better 
for you, you do entirely too much as you 
please. I know you were disappointed yester- 
day, and I know you are tired from being up 
so late last night, but if you would only learn 
a little more self-control — ” 

Mrs. Lane was happily unconscious of the 
fact that she had never learned it herself. She 
could have cut off her right hand for her 
daughter, but she positively couldn’t let her 
alone. 

Ethel ventured a word on the subject when 
the two girls sat before the bedroom fire, pre- 
paratory to dressing for dinner. 

“You needn’t go on, Ethel,” said Anna, 
with a sudden sweet, forlorn smile. “Poor 
mother! I know I was horrid — but you 
needn’t talk about the other part. I know 
everything you are going to say. You see this 
isn’t the first time — it’s all happened before. 
Harland does just what he pleases, that’s 
just what it comes down to, without any ref- 
erence to me. He’ll never in this world own 
that he’s wrong about anything, because he 
always thinks he’s right.” 

[ 1 1 8 ] 


When Love is Kind 


She looked with half-averted face from un- 
der her long lashes, in the drooping shadow 
of her hair. 

“But when it’s business — ” remonstrated 
Ethel sensibly. 

“Business! Yes, that’s the excuse for every- 
thing. I’ve been asking myself seriously, 
‘Hasn’t a promise to a girl any weight? 
Doesn’t it mean anything? Couldn’t he have 
said to the people who wanted him,’ “I can- 
not go that day, on account of an engage- 
ment which I cannot break, made two weeks 
ago ?” I believe he could have said it, if he had 
only thought he could — he simply takes it 
for granted that he can’t. I’ve been trying my 
best to think of it all in his way — and I can’t! 
I never can.” She stopped and then went on 
again scornfully. “If it was our wedding day, 
I suppose he wouldn’t come if he was called 
away on business!” 

“Now that’s silly,” said Ethel. Anna rose 
and took a letter from the desk in the corner. 
“I want you to hear what I’ve written to 
him.” 

Dear Harland: 

You kindly wrote that you would be here to-night. As 
I will not be at home, I send this to tell you so, although 
I suppose it is unnecessary, for you have, probably, no 

[ ”9 1 


Little Stories of Courtship 


more intention than usual of keeping your word. The 
position you put me in last night was sufficiently obvious, 
without further explanation. I don’t know whether it’s 
worth while to say that there are some things one natur- 
ally expects of a gentleman. 

Yours truthfully, 

Anna Lane. 

“Anna!” cried Ethel, in consternation. 
“What a dreadful note! You can’t possibly 
send that; he’ll never forgive you.” 

“I don’t want him to.” 

“Oh, but you will!” Ethel was thoroughly 
roused. “I’ll own it was horrid to be treated 
in that way — I’d have hated it — but there 
are some things you can’t say to a man, 
they’re so queer, they mind so terribly! Now, 
we could just squabble and get over it, but 
they — Don’t you remember James, when 
Jakey made the fuss about the golf sticks, and 
said that James didn’t tell the truth? Jakey 
was only being disagreeable because he was 
put out, he really didn’t mean anything; but 
James was livid; he made Jakey knuckle 
right down, he said he’d thrash him if he 
joked that way again. If you send that letter 
to Harland, it will hurt him more than you 
can ever make up, and you’ll be sorry when 
it’s too late.” 

[ 120 ] 


When Love is Kind 


“He doesn’t care whether he hurts me,” 
said Anna unchangeably. “It would be like 
this all our lives. I won’t marry any one who 
counts me out in that way — it isn’t fair!” 

“Well, if you send that note, he won’t want 
to marry you;” Ethel’s tone was vigorous. “It 
says the kind of thing he won’t stand; it hits 
at his self-respect. He just won’t like you any 
more, that’s all there is about it.” 

“I am going to send it,” said Anna, calmly. 

“You can’t get it to him in time — it’s six 
o’clock now!” 

“When James comes home — There he is 
now. Oh, James, please come up here. Are 
you going around to Gertrude’s to dinner?” 

“Yes,” said James, appearing at the door. 
“Hello, Ethel, wish I was going to stay home 
with you ; wouldn’t have to exert myself 
then.” He stopped to yawn irrepressibly. 
“They always have these dances last too long. 
I like it well enough until midnight, and then 
I want to go home. This dancing until three 
o’clock in the morning makes me feel rotten. 
What do you want with me, Anna ? Say it 
quick, and let me go.” 

“I want to know if you’ll leave this letter 
at Harland’s on your way.” 

“Yes, all right. Here, give it to me. What’s 


Little Stories of Courtship 

the use of putting on that ‘Politeness of 
James’? Slam on the blotter. There, that’ll 
do.” 

“You won’t forget it ?” 

“No, I’ll not forget it,” said James. He 
went off, to call upstairs after a while: 

“Where in thunder are my gloves, Anna ?” 

“Look on the table. Have you got my 
letter?” 

“Yes, I’ve got it. The gloves aren’t there.” 

“Perhaps you left them in the cosey corner 
in the hall.” 

“No, I didn’t.” 

“Look under the pillows.” 

“All right, I’ve got them.” 

He was gone at last. If Anna’s heart had 
begun to fail her in those last minutes, it was 
too late now. The deed was done — her let- 
ter to Harland had gone; the crude, smart- 
ing impulse had had its way. 

She was so brightly composed at dinner, so 
cheerfully conversational that even the watch- 
ful mother tried to believe that the girl was 
happy once more, although some inner sense 
puzzled over what could still be wrong. And 
dinner time passed, and the evening began. 
Ethel had gone into the library to write to 
Jakey. Mr. Lane had disappeared upstairs 
[122] 


When Love is Kind 


with a headache, and Anna herself dropped 
into the cushioned and canopied corner in the 
hall, safe from inspection by the maternal eye. 
She felt a chill coming over her now, after the 
fever of her unused passion was spent. There 
was a tenseness of expectation that made her 
lean forward, listening, her head upon her 
slender hand. Expectation of what — ? The 
canopy shadowed her drooping face, framed 
in its falling hair, the long lashes making 
shadows on her cheeks. The pink lamp sent a 
rosy glow over the folds of her pearl grey 
gown. But the chill grew. She began to real- 
ize that she would not see Harland — not 
that night, perhaps not at any other time. He 
would be very kind to her, but he would never 
be her lover again. Unerring was the cleaving 
knowledge of the truth as Ethel had spoken 
it. 

Like people who imagine themselves dead, 
yet able to weep in luxurious sympathy with 
the survivors, Anna had felt that she could 
have the merciless pleasure of repudiating 
Harland while still enjoying his loved pres- 
ence — but now the truth struck home. If the 
woman whom he had asked to be his wife 
could write him such a note, he would not 
come. He was no light-o’ love, erratic, irre- 

[123] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

sponsible boy, like Jakey, but a very self-re- 
specting man, with a strong will and a cer- 
tain sternness of dignity about him when his 
honour was questioned. There was a gleam 
in his eye which had scared Anna not un- 
pleasantly once or twice. She had been proud 
of that very spirit in him, and had felt her own 
rise unwontedly to meet it. Oh, she was proud 
of him, and that was why it had been so bit- 
ter a mortification not to have him with her 
at the dance — he was head and shoulders 
above those other men! And they had thought 
her slighted! Why, she knew he was longing 
to be with her every minute of the time. She 
knew that if he decided what was right for 
him to do, he paid her the compliment of 
thinking that she would understand. Her 
womanhood still cried out defiantly: “He 
should have kept his word to me, no matter 
what the cost!” Yet her womanhood cried 
out for his dear presence then, that minute, 
whatever the cost of that, no matter what had 
been said or done. And now he would not 
come. If his promised wife could write him a 
letter like that, he would not come. Oh, if she 
had not sent it! A wild unreasoning frenzy 
possessed her. Take back as she might her 
written words, she could not give him back 
[124] 


When Love is Kind 


the dear image of his trusting girl-lover — 
that was gone forever. Yet, if he did not come 
to-night, she would die! 

She lay back further under the Turkish 
canopy as her mother passed under the stair- 
way. It grew nearly nine o’clock. She had 
had a wild, insistent hope, despite all her 
knowledge of him, that he might come. She 
buried her head now in the pillows, that her 
burning eyes might have a little rest. Some- 
thing stiff rattled out from under her hand; 
she took it up and looked at it, at first me- 
chanically, and then in startled incredulity. It 
was a sealed letter, and on the light blue en- 
velope was written in her own handwriting: 

Harland Lloyd, Esq., 

Politeness of James. 

It had never gone — No, it had never gone. 
Everything was as it had been before — that 
was the lightning flash from the heavens! 
James had dropped the letter looking for his 
gloves. Everything was as it had been before. 
Anna rose with a beating heart. 

And what was that sound that broke upon 
the stillness of the night far down at the cross- 
ing, growing nearer and nearer as she lis- 

[125] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

tened ? A quick, ringing tread, firm, but very, 
very rapid, as a footstep seldom sounds, but 
at one time in a man’s life, with the hurry of 
his joy, his possession — He was coming to 
her as a lover comes. 

Ah, no shadowy Anna this, who awaited 
his arms around her, but a lovely, joyous, 
rosy thing of palpitating light! What mattered 
the eternal differences — the questions to be 
settled ? They could be lived out together. 

“Anna!” Mrs. Lane’s busy tones came 
from the hall above. “Ann- na! Harland is 
coming; I thought you’d like to know, so that 
you could open the door for him.” 

She sank back unseen, with deep relief, 
into the chair by the upper window, at 
which she had been standing to watch. The 
scourge of Love is far-reaching. Poor Mrs. 
Lane was, as she murmured to herself, all 
worn out. 


Latimer’s Mother 


/ 



















Latimer’s Mother 

A Family Love Story 

I F it were only Maudie Caswell instead 
of that Miss Slombruger that Latimer 
was attentive to ! ” 

Mrs. Lane looked appealingly at her pretty 
brown-haired daughter, a two-months’ bride, 
who, brave in her wedding finery, sat now 
with a temporary effect in a big arm-chair, 
watching the clock, at the close of a day spent 
in her old home. 

“Do you suppose I ought to go and call on 
her, Anna ?” 

“Oh, mother, no! Of course not!” Young 
Mrs. Harland Lloyd’s tone was final. “It 
isn’t as if anything had been announced; we’re 
not supposed to know about it at all.” 

“Yes, I know , Anna, but still — ” Mrs. 
Lane was plainly unconvinced. “When every- 
body is asking me if they are engaged — the 
Caprons go to all those club-dances in Bridge- 
road and bring back all kinds of reports — 
when even Mrs. Wagner actually congratu- 
lated me, it seems to me very singular that his 
mother should be expected to take no notice of 
[ 129] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


it whatever. When you read love stories they 
always make it seem as if there were only the 
two young people in the world — I dare say 
they think so themselves — but they're very 
much mistaken. I think the family has a great 
deal to go through.” Mrs. Lane paused to add 
uncomfortably: “Slombruger seems such an 
extraordinary name — and Anemone Slom- 
bruger! It doesn't sound quite — ladylike.” 

“They say it was originally Von Slom- 
bruger,” interrupted Anna, over whose lovely 
face little causeless, tremulous blushes had 
been coming and going, as if, while her mother 
talked, she herself were holding secret con- 
verse with Love. “They say there was a castle 
on the Rhine — before the father went to 
Nevada.” 

“Yes, my dear, so I've heard. But she seems 
such an unnatural sort of person for my boy 
to like — Latimer has just the same look in 
his eyes that he had when he was a baby, and 
his hair falls over his forehead the same way, 
for all he is so grown up and so broad, and has 
done so well in business. I can’t seem to hear 
anything about this Miss Slombruger except 
that she only cares for dancing and is very at- 
tractive to men. Now you know yourself, An- 
na, you can’t make a home for a man on that. 

[130] 


Latimer’s Mother 


I wish I had taken more notice of her at your 
reception — I did see that she was very tall, 
and white, and thin, and dressed magnifi- 
cently, but I never thought of her in connec- 
tion with Latimer; she put me out a little by 
shaking my hand up by my ear, with that odd, 
mannish kind of a grip that some girls have. 
It seems so odd that she should have come on 
to visit at the Caswells — such nice, com- 
fortable, old-time people — making such 
a long stay too, and the brother coming out 

from town so often. He was quite nice look- 
• »> 
mg. 

“They say he is devoted to Maudie,” in- 
terpolated Anna again. 

“Yes, so you told me. When Latimer be- 
gan suddenly going there, I did hope it was 
for her. She was always such a dear child, and 
there’s been something in her manner to me 
since her mother’s death that has always 
appealed to me — though since they moved 
to Bridgeroad and that grandmother came to 
live there, we’ve sort of lost sight of them. 
She got along with your father so beautifully 
at the reception; he was very much pleased 
with her. Do you know, Anna — you’ll laugh 
at me — but there was something, just a little 
something in her eyes when she handed 

[131] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


Latimer her oyster plate that made me feel as 
if she cared.” 

“Miss Slombruger is terribly bad style,” 
said Anna decidedly. “She tried to flirt with 
Harland at the reception — that placed her 
at once with me; the brother was very 
nice to me. But Latimer has had so many 
affairs, probably this won’t amount to any- 
thing.” 

“Oh, my dear! You needn’t tell me” Mrs. 
Lane shook her head with melancholy cer- 
tainty. “You may think a person is in earnest, 
but when you see the real thing you know . 
Why he never has his Sunday dessert any 
more— not even when it’s Nesselrode pudding, 
and you know how fond he is of that — be- 
cause he is in such a hurry to get that two 
o’clock train that makes connection for Bridge- 
road. If dinner isn’t on the table at the mo- 
ment, he goes around with his watch in his 
hand counting the seconds, and you know 
how your father hates to have anything hur- 
ried. Oh, Latimer isn’t like himself at all. He 
looks so strained and excited.” 

“Harland’s mother invited him to her 
musicale — she counted on his violin — and 
he never came, and never sent any word. I 
was so ashamed,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “Of 

[ 132] 


Latimer’s Mother 


course Harland wouldn’t have minded for 
himself, but when it was his mother — ” 

“Well, Harland will have to stand it like 
anybody else,” announced Mrs. Lane stub- 
bornly. “I hardly see Latimer at all — he 
never comes in before one o’clock at night. 
The other evening I tried to get a chance to 
speak to him while he was buttoning his collar, 
saying people had been asking me about his 
going so much to Bridgeroad, and he only 
said, in that emphatic way of his, ‘When 
there’s anything to tell you, mother, you may 
be sure I’ll tell it.’ Oh, dear me! You don’t 
have to put on your things and go already, do 
you ?” 

“Yes, I’d better,” said Anna, who had 
risen and was putting on her hat. The lovely 
colour deepened in her soft cheeks — she 
looked with starry eyes at her mother. “ Har- 
land is so foolish; if he gets home before I do 
he feels so lonely, he won’t even sit down un- 
til I come in.” 

“Yes. Oh, well, he’ll get over that,” stated 
Mrs. Lane absently. She returned yearningly 
to her troubles. “I can’t get used to your liv- 
ing out of the house, Anna, and going to Har- 
land’s mother’s to Sunday nights’ tea. Of 
course it’s all right, but I can’t say I don’t 
[i33] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


miss you; even Harland couldn’t expect me 
to say that I don’t miss you, Anna.” 

“Now you know you have me every day in 
the week,” returned the daughter in a cheerful 
tone, stopping in the arrangement of her veil 
to lean caressingly against the motherly 
shoulder near her, with a quick little upward, 
loving glance that took in the tears Mrs. Lane 
was bravely endeavouring to keep under 
cover. “I wouldn’t worry about Latimer. She 
is horrid, but something may come to break it 
off. Didn’t you say I was to have some of 
those biscuits to take home with me ?” 

Mrs. Lane brightened visibly. “I’ve got 
them in a box downstairs for you, dear, and a 
piece of the chocolate cake. And, Anna, you’ll 
laugh at me, but I put in two of those cro- 
quettes; you liked them so much for lunch, 
dear. Don’t let Gunda burn them up when 
she warms them over.” 

She would have liked to send around a 
whole dinner, but Harland mightn’t like it. 
The Lloyds’s little dwelling was charming, 
but Anna as her mother’s helper and Anna 
as housekeeper on her own account were two 
very different things. The meals those two 
young people sat down to wrung Mrs. Lane’s 
heart. The thought of Latimer, her darling 
[i34] 


Latimer’s Mother 


boy, starving with a Miss Slombruger who 
only cared for dancing, was really too much. 
Miss Slombruger! In spite of being still young, 
and in spite of daily association with the pres- 
ent generation, Mrs. Lane had a queer little 
old-fashioned streak in her that didn’t belong 
in this age — she was, like her bedroom, 
black walnut to the core. The United States 
of America consisted of a territory some 
twenty-five miles square, in which Everybody 
lived and the capital of which was her home. 
People who came from otherwhere might be 
nice, but even then she was relieved when 
they went back to their strange outlands. 
She was so very much herself that it was hard 
for her to put herself in the place of her child- 
ren, though she yearned unspeakably for some 
real, living sympathy in her care for the be- 
loved son, her strong young Prince among 
men, whose future happiness was, alas! in his 
own inexperienced hands. 

“Is Latimer detained to-night?” asked 
Mr. Lane at dinner, looking at the place op- 
posite James, the younger son. Mr. Lane’s 
high, grey-crowned forehead and Roman 
nose made anything he said impressive. 

“Why, I suppose so,” said the wife hur- 
riedly. “It’s dreadful the way he is kept at the 
[i35] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


office. He has hardly been home to dinner a 
night this week.” 

“Well, he isn’t kept at the office to-night,” 
said James the care-free. James was a college 
youth who enjoyed life. “I met him on the 
train to-night coming out with Maudie Cas- 
well.” 

“Maudie!” Mrs. Lane’s heart gave a glad 
leap. 

“Well, he was with her at first, and then 
they paired off with that Slombruger crowd — 
they make me tired. Latimer had on one of 
my new neckties, too, one I’ve been saving to 
wear. Oh, you bet he tried to dodge, but I saw 
him. When he forgets to send his things to the 
laundry he just walks in and takes mine. I 
won’t stand it any longer, and I’ll tell him so, 
too, when I get the chance. He acts as crazy 
as a loon over that girl — he acts crazy !” 

“If you will allow me to speak,” said Mr. 
Lane, with dignified displeasure, “I would 
like you, my dear, to request Latimer to lock 
the hall door when he comes in so late. Ellen 
informed me this morning that the key had 
not been turned in the lock nor the chain put 
up for two nights.” 

“I don’t see why she told you,” murmured 
Mrs. Lane with a flash of resentment and a 
[136] 


Latimer’s Mother 


quick decision to muzzle Ellen for the future. 
“Poor Latimer! He’s so tired when he comes 
in these nights after that long journey from 
Bridgeroad, I suppose he can hardly see to 
get upstairs.” 

The father waved an impatient hand. 

“Latimer is old enough to look after him- 
self. If he is tired, it’s his own lookout. I want 
that door locked .” 

“Very well, dear,” said Mrs. Lane abjectly. 
She was the recognized means of transmis- 
sion between her husband and his household. 
She hastened, now, to place the evening lamp 
in the little study off the library, wondering 
whether she ought to speak to him about 
Miss Slombruger or not. That little old-fash- 
ioned streak was answerable for her position 
toward her husband. Mr. Lane, an intelligent 
and upright man, somewhat stiff and diffident 
by nature, had been so surrounded with sa- 
cred observances by a sacrificial wife that his 
every peculiarity had been heightened, until 
he was now a being apart. In the inclosure in 
which he lived, every pebble had been so care- 
fully removed that a grain of misplaced sand 
irritated him. He always sat in the study, no 
matter what went on in the house, and when 
mistaken strangers hospitably insisted on en- 
[i37] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

tertaining him, under the impression that he 
was being neglected, “the family” always got 
nervous. Yet there were times when “father” 
had been known to come out of his shell and 
talk delightfully, and there was an implicit 
confidence in his affection. As he smiled now 
at his wife she took the plunge. 

“Theodore!” 

“Well, my dear?” 

“Latimer is — well, I don’t know that he 
is, but — he hasn’t told me that he was en- 
gaged yet, but I think that’s what it is. She 
is considered a very — attractive girl, the 
daughter of the Hon. Zachary Adolphus 
Slombruger, of Nevada, but I think he comes 
from — Germany.” 

“Germany!” Mr. Lane sat up straight, his 
Roman nose looking like an ensign. “He 
comes from a little back Jersey town. A 
daughter of Zach Slombruger s /” A dull red 
crept up to his narrow temples, his eyes glit- 
tered. “Then all I can say is, she’s the daugh- 
ter of one of the worst scoundrels unhung. 
The way he behaved about that Undine water 
deal was a notorious scandal — he’s a man 
I wouldn’t let come inside my door. Will you 
kindly push that footstool a quarter of an 
inch further this way ? Thank you.” 

[138] 


Latimer’s Mother 


“ But Theodore ! What am I to do about it ?” 
Poor Mrs. Lane was agonized. “If Latimer 
loves her, Theodore — ” 

“I don’t know what you’re going to do 
about it. I wash my hands of the whole affair. 
But I give you fair warning, you’ll be very 
sorry if you encourage Latimer in any such 
folly. If you take my advice you’ll put a stop 
to the whole thing at once. I don’t care what 
the girl is like, it’s bad stock, Nannie. That’s 
what it is, it’s Bad Stock! Have this lamp 
taken out of the room at once, if you please, 
and attended to properly. The odour is dis- 
gusting.” 

“Oh, Theodore!” said poor Mrs. Lane 
again, with a heart whose swift sympathy 
leapt beyond the trivial manifestation of his 
perturbation to the real cause of it. Bad Stock! 
She knew what the words meant to him — 
and to her, too. An honourable, upright, 
God-fearing ancestry — that was the founda- 
tion of family living that every one must 
have. Yet Anemone might be the flower on a 
dunghill. 

She went to the hall door to look out for a 
moment in the hope of seeing her boy, and 
surprised two large ladies about to ring. 

“Why, Aunt Margaret!” she cried. “And 
[i39] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

Maggie, too. How did you get here ? Come 
right in. Have you had your dinner ?” 

“Oh, don’t speak of dinner!” said the 
younger woman, who was not so very young, 
and who had an air of brisk benevolence. 
“We came up this afternoon from Bridge- 
road to a meeting of the Daughters, and there 
was such a collation! We thought we would 
just drop here for five minutes on our way 
back to the train, we see you so seldom.” 

“I’m so glad you did,” said Mrs. Lane 
warmly. “I do wish the boys were home to 
see their Aunt Margaret, but James has just 
gone out, and Latimer is hardly ever home to 
dinner now; he works so hard in the office.” 

“Indeed! We hear of Latimer quite fre- 
quently at the Caswell’s in the next street.” 
said Aunt Margaret. “Mrs. Slope — she lives 
next door to them — runs in two or three 
times a week to have a little chat with us. She 
says old Mrs. Caswell is really worn out with 
so much company. Ever since that dreadful 
girl from the West arrived the house has been 
full of young men, staying until all hours. 
Poor Maudie is so tired she doesn’t look like 
herself at all.” 

“Well, I must say I don’t think old Mrs. 
Caswell puts herself out very much,” retorted 
[140] 


Latimer’s Mother 


Mrs. Lane, a furious tide rising in her. “I 
know Latimer has gone there straight from 
the office, without any dinner, several times 
when he has been kept late, and has never 
been offered a thing to eat. No young man 
ever comes to my house in that way without 
my finding out if he’s had his dinner, but 
when its my child, he has to go without. I sup- 
pose it’s because Mrs. Caswell is just a grand- 
mother, and doesn’t want the trouble. If those 
boys stay too late it’s her own fault. I’m sure 
I’ve often wished she’d allude to the time in 
some way, pleasantly, of course, so they’d 
have some idea of the hour. One night Lati- 
mer missed the last train, and had to walk 
three miles to the trolley, and they never even 
asked him to stay all night.” 

“Well, of course, if you’re satisfied to have 
him there so often, Nannie, it’s all right — if 
you’re satisfied with his attentions to Miss 
Slombruger. Mother thought — but if you 
are satisfied it’s all right,” said Cousin Mag- 
gie agreeably, with, however, a mysterious 
air of reservation all through the rest of the 
visit that Mrs. Lane scorned to inquire into. 
She was trembling with an indignation which, 
however, left her forlorn, when they departed; 
she was sick of the sound of Miss Slombrug- 
[hi] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

er’s name and sick of the whole thing. The 
tide of report ran but one way. The blue eyes 
of her eldest born, her bright, warm-hearted, 
honest, whole-souled boy looked at her as for 
the last time. Some way she must not let him 
make this suicidal marriage — the dreary years 
of consequences stretched murderously be- 
fore her. But how to stop him ? If she pleaded 
he would not listen; if his father command- 
ed he would not obey. What could you do 
with children who were bent on folly after 
they were grown up ? She had a sudden yearn- 
ing for Maudie, for the little, homelike girl 
with the tender eyes, who had looked as if she 
also cared for him. 

“Oh, Latimer! My dear boy.” She ran to 
the head of the stairs as he came up. “I could 
hardly believe it was you — so early. Oh, my 
boy! What is it? Latimer !” She clasped her 
hands around his arm, and he pushed along 
toward his room without turning to her, but 
stopping when he got there to say mechani- 
cally : 

“What did you say, mother ?” 

Then he broke out, suddenly and strangely. 
“They came up to the dance at the Club Hall 
here to-night, and they didn’t ask me to go 
with them. What do you think of that ? What 
f 142] 


Latimer’s Mother 


do you think it means? Anemone said — ” 
He stopped, with an odd, twisted, breathless 
smile, his eyes staring past her as if through a 
haze. 

“Pm as jealous — as — the deuce !” he 
said in an odd, breathless tone that matched 
his smile. “Pm as — jealous — as the deuce! 
It’s the fire of — Go, mother!” 

She felt his arm around her for a moment, 
as he suffered her embrace, and then she was 
outside the door he had closed, trembling and 
shaken at this glimpse of a great, primitive 
passion. It was so strange that anything like 
this should happen “in the family.” 

She had a fierce rage at the girl who was 
playing with her boy’s heart, yet an exultant, 
traitorous hope that she might throw it quite 
away. That would settle everything. What 
mattered the knife thrust of a little pain now, 
if it was to save the tragedy of a marred fut- 
ure ? She was already beginning to plan the 
desserts she would have for him when he 
stayed at home once more for his Sunday 
dinner, and stopped her planning only to 
head off tall young James as he came up to 
the landing. 

“Latimer doesn’t feel very well,” she said. 
“I think he’s in some trouble about that girl.” 

[H3] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


James was always a rather combative con- 
fidant, but she was fain of any at the moment. 

“All right; better leave him alone, then,” 
said James philosophically. 

“Oh, James! You are so unsatisfactory. All 
my children are so — so intense , in their own 
way.” Mrs. Lane wandered off distract- 
edly. “/ don’t get any good of anybody. There 
is Harland; we used to be so intimate when 
he was coming here to the house, but now 
there’s that little feeling — I can’t explain it. 
He is just as nice and respectful to me as he 
can be, and he brought me that lovely pitcher 
from their wedding trip, but, somehow, he 
seems to feel as if Anna belonged to him. Well, 
I suppose she does, in a way , but still — ” 

James put up a quick, detaining hand. 

“Hark, mother! What’s that ?” 

The street had suddenly become full of 
voices, and the noise of people running 
heavily in one direction. Some one called 
shrilly to another in answer — “The Club 
Hall! The Club Hall! Awful accident! The 
flooring’s given way!” The Club Hall — that 
was where the big dance was to-night! 

James had gone as his mother turned to 
him. Then Latimer’s door opened, and he 
shot down the stairway. She cried out help- 
[H4] 


Latimer’s Mother 


lessly at the sight of his face, and hid her 
eyes. 

“Oh, my God! Don't let him suffer like 
that. Give him anything he wants, anything , 
as long as it isn't wrong," she sobbed, wring- 
ing her hands. “Oh, my God! Don't let him 
suffer." Then she caught up a cloak and ran 
out into the night too, though it was the time 
that Mr. Lane always had his glass of milk. 

As she tried to hasten along she heard 
somebody say, “Why, it's Mrs. Lane! Is there 
anybody you know down there ? What ? Jump 
right in. I'll get you there in a second," and 
she was being whizzed in an automobile 
through the hurrying crowd. Wherever they 
went there was a crowd abreast of them, and 
Latimer's face somewhere in the darkness 
ahead. When the car stopped, just outside the 
lines, she seemed to be waiting endlessly 
amongst shouting, and calling, and darkness, 
and confused runnings to and fro. Then, some- 
how, that was Maudie who was handed into 
her arms, crying, “Oh, Mrs. Lane! Oh, Mrs. 
Lane!" and then — “Latimer is with her — 
I sent him. She isn't killed. She isn't killed! 
Tell me she isn't!" 

“No, dear. Oh, no!" said Mrs. Lane me- 
chanically. “Poor little girl! Poor little girl!" 
[i45] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


She held the shaking form fast to her moth- 
erly bosom with a sudden, intuitive knowledge 
of womankind, brought by the touch of the 
arms that clung to her. Maudie clung to her 
that way because she was Latimer’s mother 
and they both loved him; she seemed to 
have known always that Maudie loved her 
boy. There was a bond between them that 
must forever remain unspoken. They must 
both give him up. To give him up for what 
was not the best — there lay the hurt. Oh, how 
much a man might lose for not being able to 
see the best that could come to him, for not 
wanting to see it! — Then she was, some- 
how, not surprised to find her husband beside 
them, taking charge of her and Maudie, too. 

“Well, mother, now you look something 
like!” Anna Lloyd gave a last, affectionate 
dab with the comb at her mother’s hair. “The 
idea of your running off to that dreadful 
place, and then collapsing up here as soon 
as father got you back! You’re just like a 
child when you haven’t me to look after you.” 

“You’re sure everything is all right?” 

“How many times must I tell you? Ane- 
mone came to long before they got her here; 
she was smiling at Latimer when he carried 
[146] 


Latimer’s Mother 


her in. She’s on the sofa in the library. The 
doctor said she was to be kept quiet for half 
an hour after what he gave her, and Maudie’s 
in the next room. Latimer has been telephon- 
ing all over. Father has had his glass of milk — 
he was very good about waiting for it — and 
Harland is with him now. Harland’s prom- 
ised not to talk of any of the Subjects of the 
Day, they differ so about them.” 

“That is very kind of Harland,” murmured 
Mrs. Lane. “Go down now, Anna. I’ll be 
there in a moment.” 

Her quick ear had detected Latimer’s foot- 
step coming to her door. She forced herself to 
meet his shining eyes that seemed to perceive 
her through a great light. 

“Mother!” 

“Yes, my son.” 

“I said I’d tell you when there was any- 
thing to tell, and now there is — so much.” 

She tried to draw him down to her, but he 
still stood erect, as beautiful as an angel, she 
thought, in his happiness. 

“ It was all — a mistake. I told you I was 
jealous — well, she was jealous, too. She 
thought I didn’t care for her. Think of it! And 
so we misunderstood, until to-night, when I 
found her — until to-night. Then we knew . 
[i47] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


Mother, I know you and the rest haven’t 
taken to Anemone, but you don’t know her. 
She’s got a heart of gold. She wanted to get a 
chance to tell me just as soon as she found it 
out. . . . Mother, will you come down- 

stairs ? There’s a little girl there who wants 
you to love her. She’s waiting now for you to 
take her into the family.” 

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Lane quietly, and 
went down on his supporting arm, feeling 
very queer and tottering on her legs — they 
seemed to buzz, somehow, like the automo- 
bile. But, as she entered the library and saw 
who awaited her, she stopped short, bewild- 
ered, her mind rushing backward with a 
lightning stroke, to take swift tally of her 
boy’s actions, of his words, and find that the 
meaning she had read into them was all her’s 
• — and the world’s! Not his at all, not his! 
This girl, whose sweet eyes sought her’s with 
a lovely, eager confidence in her oneness with 
their happiness — 

“Maudie!” cried Mrs. Lane, as she put her 
joyful arms around the two. “Maudie, my 
dear, dear child! Oh, Maudie, Maudie, 
Maudie!” 



[148] 


In Cinderella’s Shoes 




In Cinderella’s Shoes 

An Every-Day Love Story 

H S the clock struck nine from the church 
tower in the square, Miss Margaret 
Woodford started, and looked musingly 
out of the window beside her at the lights of 
the city, and thence to the heap of shining ap- 
parel that lay spread out on the bed in the 
small fourth-story room. Then, as if making a 
decision, she pushed aside the proof sheets 
that lay stacked up before her, removed both 
the pen and the pencil which had decorated 
her hair, and rose from the table by which she 
had been sitting, with slight intermission, ever 
since she had come home from the office and a 
hard day’s work, four hours ago. 

At the moment she was a slender, brown, 
unnoticeable woman, in a businesslike, short, 
brown walking skirt and flannel shirt-waist, 
but it was a dainty lady of fashion, in a trail- 
ing robe of white silken stuff, with white neck 
and arms, and a knot of yellow velvet on her 
shoulder and in her dark hair, whose spark- 
ling brunette face was reflected in the little 
toilet glass an hour later 


Little Stories of Courtship 


She pinned the lace in the front of her 
bodice with an oddly-shaped, old-fashioned 
topaz brooch, that had been her grand- 
mother’s, and a wistful smile hovered around 
her mouth, for she used to have to beg to wear 
it in the old days when she was a happy girl in 
her Virginia home. 

“I look all right, but I wonder if, after all, 
it is foolish of me to go ?” was her unspoken 
comment, as she flung a white crepe shawl 
around her head and shoulders, burnoose 
fashion, and, gathering up her fan and gloves, 
ran down the dingy boarding-house stairs to 
the carriage that awaited her. 

She had not dared to count up the precious 
money spent on that carriage and the gown, 
with its dainty equipments — to what end ? 
What right had a hard-working, solitary 
business woman with such things ? What 
place could there be for her in society ? With 
Emma de Lacy’s invitation to the New Year’s 
reception had come a sudden and uncontrol- 
lable longing for a little luxury; a luxury 
that embraced not only the soft raiment and 
the pleasures of the rich, but the sight of old 
friends — the luxury of a little love. Old 
friends! That was the cord that underneath 
all was drawing her. She was lonelier than 

[152] 


In Cinderella’s Shoes 


any one knew. Would they be glad to see her ? 
There was Captain Gordon, for instance, who 
had just returned with his regiment; he might 
not even remember her. He had been such a 
dear boy, only, after all, she would not marry 
him, and she had never quite known whether 
she was wise then or not. 

“Why, Miss Woodford! Can it really be 
you ? Where are you going on New Year's 
Eve ? Wait — let me help you in." 

She turned on the carriage step, laughing, 
half shamedfacedly, as she looked up at the 
very tall young man, with a smooth-shaven 
face and merry eyes, who was bending over 
her. 

“Yes, Mr. Austin, it’s I! I'm in Cinder- 
ella's shoes to-night. I'm going to a ball. Don't 
tell it at the office to-morrow. " 

“ I don't see why not, " He gazed at her with 
a surprised admiration that brought the colour 
to her cheeks. “You're awfully swell! I'm on 
my way home to dress, for I'm in for the so- 
cial act myself to-night. I wish it combined 
with yours. " 

“I wish so, too," she replied, longingly. 
“I'm glad you're here to start me off, anyway. 
Jump in and let me take you to your corner; 
it's on my way. I felt so lonely and unspon- 
[i53] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


sored before you came, though I’m going to 
meet old friends to-night — people whom I 
haven’t seen for years. ” 

“I think it was very unkind of you to have 
Cinderella plans, and not let me know,” he 
retorted. “I come to you with all mine. As for 
your old friends, I don’t wonder the thought 
of them depresses you. I feel in advance that I 
should hate them.” 

“Oh!” she laughed outright. “Please don’t 
be so radical. But I have read wretched stories 
of women like me, who have scrimped and 
saved for one night’s enjoyment, only to be 
cruelly snubbed and neglected, and come back 
home with all the heart crushed out of them. 
That would be sad. Do you think me very 
foolish to go ? Am I making a mistake ?” 

“Dtd you scrimp and save?” he asked, 
irrelevantly. 

“Oh, yes, yes! I didn’t care to go in half- 
way, poor-relationy clothes; I wanted them 
to be real. I love pretty things. Are you 
smiling because I never wear them ?” 

He leaned forward and clasped both her 
small, gloved hands together in his large one. 

“No; I’m grinning horribly because I’ve got 
to leave you to your old friends, and I don’t 
want to, There’s my corner. Good-bye!” 


In Cinderella’s Shoes 


“ Good-night !” she called after him, as the 
carriage rolled away, leaving him on the side- 
walk, and then she sank back in the cushions, 
feeling indescribably enlivened and gay. There 
was always something bracing about Jack 
Austin. 

The De Lacy’s drawing-room was full as 
she swept into it, and Emma De Lacy herself, 
stout, good-natured, and homely, in green 
velvet and diamonds, received her with affec- 
tionate impressiveness. 

“ Jasper,” she said to her husband, “here’s 
Margaret Woodford; we ought to consider 
ourselves very lucky. I’m glad you’ve emerged 
from your shell for once, Meg; it’s ridiculous 
for a woman of your age and looks to drop out 
of society. Imagine it! You were my bridesmaid 
at sixteen! How terribly early we Southern 
girls used to come out; my daughter will be in 
the school-room for years yet. Let me intro- 
duce Mr. Julian. Why, dear me! What am I 
thinking of? You and George Julian are old 
friends, of course ?” 

“You haven’t changed in the least, Miss 
Margaret,” said Mr. Julian, gallantly. He 
was very stout, and very red, and very shiny, 
and Margaret felt that she was gazing at him 
with suspicion. Was this the George Julian 
[i55l 


Little Stories of Courtship 

who had sung to his guitar for her in his slim 
young college days ? 

“I’m awfully glad to see you,” he was say- 
ing. “How it brings the old times back! This 
New Year’s reception of Mrs. De Lacy’s is a 
lovely idea. My oldest boy will be fourteen in 
May; it seems odd for me to have a boy that 
age, doesn’t it ? He’s very clever — very, so 
his teachers tell me.” 

“That must please you,” said Margaret. 

“Ah, yes — yes, it does. He takes after his 
mother — intellectual, you know; not like his 
dad. I’m fond of golf, and that sort of thing. 
Never cared for books. My wife isn’t here to- 
night; she’s home with the neuralgia. She’s a 
great sufferer from nervous neuralgia. She’s 
taken chloral, and she’s taken phenacetine, 
and she’s taken morphine, and she’s taken 
every treatment you can think of, from Swed- 
ish to Mesopotamian, and none of it does — 
one — bit — of — good! The doctor says the 
strength of her nerves is something wonder- 
ful — you can’t control ’em.” 

“How — how sad!” said Margaret, with 
wandering eyes. 

“Margaret! Margaret Woodford!” Some- 
body clutched at her effusively — a tall, sal- 
low woman, with a high roll of grey hair, black 
[156] 


In Cinderella’s Shoes 


eyebrows and very bare neck, surmounting 
an airy toilet of spangled chiffon. 

“It’s good to see you again, Meg; you don’t 
change at all. How do you manage it ? Just see 
how grey my hair is — but every one says it’s 
becoming to me. Do you write as much as 
ever ? Why don’t you come to see us ? We 
lunch at one.” 

“I can’t make calls, Kitty,” said Margaret, 
smiling. “Writing is only half my work. I’m a 
very busy woman, you know. ” 

“Busy — don’t speak of it!” exclaimed her 
friend. “ Mama and I haven’t had a minute to 
ourselves lately. The house was done over 
while we were abroad, and we’ve been re- 
furnishing since we came home. Such work! 
I never was so tired in my life; in the midst 
of the season, too, with all one’s engage- 
ments. I said yesterday that if I could 
ever get an hour to myself again — Why, 
I haven’t even had time to get my gowns 
fitted.” 

“ That must be very trying, ” said Margaret, 
with a whimsical thought of the office, and the 
presses that one could hear rumbling away for 
dear life, and the worn look of hurry on every 
human creature’s face, and the pile of work 
under her desk lid, and on her table at home, 
[i57] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


and the page of the Saturday issue for which 
she was responsible. 

“Fm so glad I saw you before I left. Pm 
going on to the Fosters’s ball in a minute. Odd 
idea, having this kind of a New Year’s re- 
ception, wasn’t it? So like Emma. Just look 
at John Sterns over there! Hasn’t he changed, 
my dear ? You’d never know him. They say 
that his wife — That was Molly Robinson 
who bowed to you just now. She tells every 
one her husband is home with the grip, but it 
is really delirium tremens. He’s taken the 
Keely cure twice. You recognize Harry Tarle- 
ton, don’t you ? The large man over there with 
the smile. He embezzled something last year, 
but it was hushed up, and your supposed not 
to know it. Don’t you think Alice Baltimore 
looks perfectly disgraceful in that gown ? 
There’s mama beckoning to me. Good-bye! 
Now, do come and see us; we lunch at one.” 

Before an hour was over Margaret had been 
welcomed, embraced, and treated to endless 
reminiscences between the lobster a la New- 
burg and the biscuit glace. She wished people 
would stop commenting on her looks, and she 
listened longingly to the music in the next 
room, where there was dancing. The pulse of 
it stirred in her veins, but she tried to pay at- 
[158] 


In Cinderella’s Shoes 


tention to Lizzie Sanderson, who used to be 
Lizzie Gordon. 

“You haven’t changed a bit, Margaret, and 
I want James to see you. He used to be awfully 
in love with you ; he never would have mar- 
ried Clara if you would have had him. He’s 
here to-night; you know he has just returned 
from the Philippines with the regiment. His 
wife died two years ago; she was an invalid for 
a long time. Perhaps it’s just as well that you 
haven’t married yet.” 

“Possibly,” assented Margaret, with an 
irrepressible smile, she knew not at what. 

“Do come and see me. Doesn’t it seem odd 
to think of me with five children ? My eldest, 
Darwin, is so like James ? Have you good 
health, Margaret ?” 

“ Very,” said Margaret, rising and looking 
wildly around the room, thronged with men 
and women gaily talking. Had she wasted 
money and aspirations for this ? Oh, those 
violins in the next room! Unconsciously her 
feet kept time. 

“Ah!” said her companion, rising also, 
“there is James. Margaret, he is coming 
straight to you. I think I’d better leave you 
two together.” She gave a little laugh that 
brought a hot flush to Margaret’s cheeks. 
[i59] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


Yes, it was James Gordon. Time, who had 
changed so many — what had it done to him ? 

Miracle of miracles! It was the same boyish 
figure that she remembered so well, with the 
same immature boyish face, in spite of the very 
slight tinge of grey in the locks that curled 
above it. It was even the same high, boyish 
voice that said: 

“Miss Woodford — Margaret! This is in- 
deed a pleasure. ” He laughed a little spas- 
modically. She remembered the habit well. 
Heaven save the mark, she had used to think 
it engaging! 

“I wonder if you’re as happy at this meet- 
ing as I am, Maggie ?” 

“How happy is that ?” she asked, with per- 
functory sprightliness. 

He bent over her affectionately. 

“Let us sit down here in this quiet corner. 
How well, how very well, you look!” He 
laughed again. It was the old manner — the 
manner for one, only. 

“Have you forgotten that you were my 
sweetheart once, Maggie ? We used to have a 
great deal to say to each other then. Do you re- 
member the ball we drove to one New Year’s 
night ?” 

“Yes,” she said, scanning him wonder- 
[160] 


In Cinderella’s Shoes 


ingly, for this was the worst thing that had 
happened to her that evening. Time had not 
changed him at all; it had passed him by, and 
that which is grace to a woman unaccount- 
ably belittles and cheapens a man. There was 
no dignity to him, no solidity. Margaret felt 
ashamed. Old friends with whom one is no 
longer in sympathy — what real pleasure is 
there in meeting them ? There is only a heart- 
ache. 

The way he was looking at her now — had 
he looked like that at his dead wife ? She did 
not know what Captain Gordon said, or what 
she answered; he was talking, talking, talk- 
ing — 

She turned to meet Jack Austin’s aston- 
ished and delighted gaze, and was amazed to 
feel the throb her heart gave. Ah! she was not 
only the relic of a dead past. The work at the 
office, the community of interest, the real 
every-day spirit of living — all seemed to come 
back to her with Jack Austin’s face. 

Almost without knowing it, her hand was 
on his arm, and they were walking off to- 
gether into the ball-room. 

She waltzed as a Southern girl can, but 
how had he divined it ? 

“This is what I call luck!” he murmured, 
[161] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


as they threaded through the crowd again to a 
nook by the stairway, behind the palms. “I 
was getting absolutely moony for you this 
evening. Why didn’t you let me know that you 
were coming here, of all places ? We’ve lost 
two precious hours, and I’ve got something to 
tell you.” 

“You always have,” she retorted, joyous- 
ly, “and it never amounts to anything.” 

“ It does this time. ” He looked at her with a 
cool intentness, under which her cheeks red- 
dened. “I hope you’ve had enough of your old 
friends, if they’re like the one I took you from. 
Idiot! Margaret, why have you tried to hide 
yourself all the time we’ve been together ? I’ve 
had my glimpses, but now I’ve found you 
out for good. Underneath your demure 
business mask, Margaret, you’re frivolously 
young!” 

She laughed, and said, with a whimsical 
pathos: 

“I know it, but I’m ashamed of it. And you 
mustn’t call me Margaret — you are younger 

“Am I ? I don’t believe it. I have ten years 
the advantage in looks and experience. What 
difference does a year or two either way make? 
We’re neither of us in our teens. But we suit 
[162] 


In Cinderella’s Shoes 


each other. ” He drew a long breath. “ How we 
suit each other !” 

“That is just your fancy,” she flashed back 
at him. 

“Perhaps,” he answered quietly. “I take 
very strong fancies sometimes. I have one now 
that I care for you, and that you care for me 
— whether you know it or not. Pve a fancy to 
have a wife who is brave and sweet and beau- 
tiful, and named Margaret. Fve a fancy that I 
should like to work for her, and ‘scrimp and 
save’ myself to buy her pretty things. I’ve a 
fancy that the dearest girl in the world is 
lonely, in spite of all her bravery.” He 
stopped, and his quick hand pressed hers 
furtively as he turned with careless manner 
to defend her from the observation of the 
outer world. “Margaret — Margaret, darling! 
You mustn't cry — not till I can put my arms 
around you! ” 



In Regard to Josephine 



In Regard to Josephine 

A First Love Story 


/T\ OTHER — ” 

III “Yes, dear, what is it you want ?” 

‘‘Hush, don’t speak so loud; father’s 
in there with Mr. Belmore, and its dreadful 
the way you can hear everything all over this 
house! I just want to ask you — ” Josephine 
Atwood’s voice was agitated and her tall 
young figure in the long, fluffy white gown ex- 
pressed a childlike dependence on the little 
mother whom she bent over at the foot of the 
stairs. “ I just want to ask you if you think you 
could keep the boys, or anybody from coming 
into the library for a while this evening ? Mr. 
Martin is going to bring a book to read aloud 
to me — it’s called “Lalla Rookh” and it’s so 
distracting when people will come in and in- 
terrupt all the time, perhaps just when you’re 
in the most interesting part. It doesn’t make 
any difference if they do go right out again, 
it interrupts just the same. And it’s often 
really as bad when you’re only talking. When- 
ever father sees Mr. Martin he seems pos- 
sessed to come and converse about the Stock 
[167] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


Exchange! Mr. Martin has such a respect for 
father that he doesn’t like not to seem inter- 
ested, and I just sit there like a stick. But I only 
ask about the reading to-night because he 
is going away day after to-morrow, and there 
won’t be any other chance.” 

“When does he come back again ?” 

“Not until June!” The girl paused im- 
pressively. “And oh, mother, will you tell Sam 
not to eat up all the candy Mr. Martin brings 
me ? He ran off with the whole box last time 
and I got only two chocolates out of it. I really 
think he’s too big to act that way.” 

“Yes, he is,” said Mrs. Atwood decidedly. 
“Did you say you were reading ‘Lalla 
Rookh ?’ How that does take me back! I re- 
member your father brought me a copy when 
I was a girl, and we — Bend a little lower, 
dear, I want to straighten that lace around 
your neck. How sweet you look to-night, dear! 
You have such a becoming colour, and your 
throat is so long and white! You were such a 
little bit of a baby, it seems odd that you 
should grow up into such a tall girl. There — 
that will do. Are these the roses Herbert Jack- 
son sent you ? Oh, no, these pink ones were 
from Mr. Martin I recollect. Your Aunt Cyn- 
thia speaks very highly of him; of course, I 
[ 1 68 ] 


In Regard to Josephine 


haven’t seen very much of him yet, but there is 
something about him that I like; he seems very 
genuine. ” 

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear you say that!” 
breathed the girl. She threw her head back, 
with her arms still around the mother, and an 
ecstatic earnestness in her dark eyes. “That’s 
exactly what he is, so genuine — I wish Aunt 
Cynthia wouldn’t always say that she remem- 
bers him when he wore blue gingham aprons, 
and was all sticky with bread-and-molasses. I 
wonder why people will remember such hor- 
rid things about you when you were young! 
He’s not a bit handsome, but he’s so clean 
looking, and there’s something in his eyes — He 
never makes silly, flattering speeches like the 
other fellows, but you feel that you can believe 
anything he says. Last night when we were 
coming home from the dance he was speaking 
about you, mother — of course, I know you’re 
just as popular as you can be with the fellows, 
they all think you’re lovely — but he says he 
thinks more of you than almost any one else he 
knows, and that everybody can see what a 
beautiful character you have; he just loves to 
hear you talk. He thinks you’re simply ideal 
with father; I told him you were just as much 
lovers now as you ever were. He thinks I’m ex- 
[169] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


actly like you, but I told him I really wasn’t a 
bit, that I was horribly selfish, and indolent 
and bad-tempered, and if he knew me well he 
wouldn’t like me at all, and then he said — oh, 
goodness, is that the bell ? And my hair all 
coming down again!” 

“You are all right just as you are,” said 
Mrs. Atwood fondly, although she knew that 
the assurance was futile. Josephine was never 
so ready to see any one but that she must 
plunge upward again at the last moment to 
make sure. 

She went herself to greet the young man and 
bestow him with the others in the drawing- 
room, until the shy yet dignified entrance of 
Josephine, with her little, half-formal invita- 
tion into the library adjoining. That Josephine 
at nineteen was grown up was an accepted 
fact in the Atwood family, though it was still 
sort of queer and unhandy to get adapted to 
the altered conditions resulting therefrom. 
There was an unnatural haggardness about 
the elders consequent on eternally sitting up 
for Josephine or bringing her home. She had 
come out with simple observance, it is true, 
but with conventional recognition of the fact; 
she had invitations, and above all, she had “ at- 
tention.” Mrs. Atwood glowed with pride as 

[170] 


In Regard to Josephine 


she thought of the three boxes from the florist’s 
that had come to the house that very week, and 
there had been bon-bons besides. The girl next 
door, older than Josephine, had no such gifts. 
Her child had a young delight in this pretty 
stage of life that unconsciously acted as a 
magnet. The mother’s mind travelled along 
future years filled with Josephine’s triumphs 
and her own enjoyment of them. Perhaps they 
might even take her to Europe after a while; 
Edward’s business had been improving so 
much lately! Eventually, of course, Josephine 
would marry, but there was plenty of time for 
that; till now she had been merely a school- 
girl, with but spasmodic and guarded trips 
into the social world. Mrs. Atwood herself, as 
early as sixteen, though she had been a little, 
round, childish thing, very different from the 
stately Josephine, had not only had long-train 
dresses, but a train of boy lovers as well; she 
had even a guilty remembrance of having been 
temporarily engaged to one! She was very 
glad indeed that times had changed. Some- 
thing in Mr. Martin’s praise of her left an un- 
certain and half unpleasant feeling; she traced 
it back to an odd, far-away remembrance of a 
somewhat similar attitude on Mr. Atwood’s 
part to her own mother, once upon a time — - 

[171] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


with that later remembrance that though he 
had been respectably fond of his mother-in- 
law there hadn’t been any glamour about it. 
She was roused, however, from her musings 
as she went to and fro, as she came suddenly 
upon a small boy with a cat in his arms. 

“Eddie, you ought to have been in bed long 
ago. I forgot all about you. ” 

“I’ve been in the library getting my pussy,” 
said the child. “She was under the sofa.” 

“Oh!” said Mrs. Atwood, with compunc- 
tion at her neglect. “Well, don’t go in there 
again. March straight up to bed, dearie. Ed- 
die! Where are you going ?” 

“I want to kiss sister good-night.” 

“ Did you hear me ? I said not to go into the 
library. ” 

“Mr. Martin gave me a quarter last time 
I kissed her good-night,” demurred the child, 
lingering. 

“Never mind, you run upstairs now ; I’ll be 
there as soon as I speak to papa.” 

She went to the doorway of the drawing- 
room in which her husband and Mr. Belmore 
were conversing. There was a clear view 
through the half-open portieres into the crim- 
son-recessed library beyond, where Josephine 
sat, leaning back, her beautiful profile turned 
[i 72 ] 


In Regard to Josephine 


upward and her eyes fastened on the face of 
the young man who bent deferentially toward 
her as he read from the book in his hand. 

“Oh, Edward, don’t you think we might 
sit in the dining-room to-night ? I’ve had an 
open fire made in there, and your box of 
cigars is on the mantelpiece. Mr. and Mrs. 
Vail may be over after a while, and if we are 
all talking here and they’re trying to read in 
there — ” 

“Just as you say,” said her husband, rising. 
“Any place suits me. Go across the hall and 
draw up your chair by the fire, Belmore, while 
I get those papers.” 

He followed his wife up the stairway, and 
she waited for him, to say: 

“I hope you don’t mind being in the other 
room ?” 

“Oh, it doesn’t make any difference to me 
where I sit,” said Mr. Atwood. “Suit yourself. 
We never have sat in the dining-room, and it’s 
always draughty there, and the light’s bad — 
but it doesn’t make any difference; you’re 
running this. See here, Jo, how long is this sort 
of thing going to last ?” 

“What sort of thing?” 

“Oh, you know what I mean!” 

Mr. Atwood bent his grizzled brows with a 
[ i73] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

look of whimsical discomfort as he put his arm 
around his wife with the unconsciousness of 
habit because she was near, and there was a 
dear, unconscious reinforcement of spirit that 
went with it. 

“I don’t approve of it. I don’t approve of it 
at all. I don’t object to Josephine’s having ‘a 
good time,’ as you call it, but I think there’s 
such a thing as having too much of it. I think 
you allow her a great deal too much liberty. 
This every-night business is wearing me out — 
it’s either sitting up till she gets back from a 
party, or waiting around until twelve o’clock 
to lock the door after young cubs who don’t 
know enough to go home. I’m not referring to 
young Martin, he seems to be a decent sort of 
fellow as far as I can tell — though it seems 
to me, for a stranger, he’s coming here pretty 
often. Three times in one week is a good 
deal, isn’t it ?” 

“Your sister Cynthia speaks very highly of 
him,” murmured Mrs. Atwood, her cheek 
resting against her husband’s rough sleeve. 
“At any rate it will soon be over; he’s going 
away now until next summer. ” 

“I suppose, then, there’s nothing — se- 
rious. ” 

“Edward, how you talk! As if Josephine — 
[i74] 


In Regard to Josephine 

No, indeed, there’s nothing of the kind, not for 
years yet.” 

“All right. What I don’t see is why they 
can’t sit with the rest of the family. I think 
you ought to give Josephine a hint about 
taking up some sensible topic of conversa- 
tion. I give you my word that the last time 
Martin was here — I sat there in plain 
sight where I couldn’t help hearing every 
word in the library — I sat there for one 
hour by the clock, and more inane conversa- 
tion I never listened to in my life. They 
didn’t seem to have an idea between ’em; I 
was actually ashamed of Josephine. After a 
while I couldn’t stand it any longer. I felt 
sorry for the fellow; I went in and talked to 
him myself. He’s fairly intelligent, too; he 
seemed really impressed with my views on 
the market.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Atwood, vaguely. “Don’t 
you think, dear, that you’d better take those 
papers to Mr. Belmore ? He’ll think you’re not 
coming. I’ll be down as soon as I have put 
Eddie to bed. ” 

But she did not come down. She lay in- 
stead beside the child — he was not so very 
little, yet he was the littlest one of the three, 
the baby boy still — and rested in the shaded 
[i75l 


Little Stories of Courtship 

room in that half drowsiness which seemed to 
lie ever in wait for her these days. She was in- 
capable of not sympathizing with any one she 
loved; her heart had gone with her Edward’s 
every step of the way, yet now she was not 
only the wife, she was not only the mother — 
she was something apart and different; in 
her were reincarnated the spirit of youth and 
love in a two-fold presentment. She had that 
strange and intoxicating pleasure of being 
“both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, 
bee and clover.” She thrilled with Joseph- 
ine’s admirers at each beauty and grace of 
her child — so darling, so adorable — and 
triumphed with Josephine in each shy joy at 
their homage. 

It seemed as if the development of her sense 
of this young happiness made her a necessary 
part of it, as if in the dim future of Josephine’s 
ultimate marriage there could be neither lov- 
ing nor being loved without her. Her cheek 
felt upon it the soft touch of the wing of ro- 
mance, hovering near. Yet there was a mo- 
mentary sharp twinge. Mr. Atwood had a cold 
and crude way of looking at things that cut 
across her warm, impulsive imaginativeness 
like a knife, and which subsequent events 
sometimes vindicated. 

[176] 


In Regard to Josephine 


“Are you looking for me ?” She detected a 
hesitating footfall on the threshold. “I’m here, 
Mary.” 

“Yes ma’am. Mr. Atwood sent me to see 
was there a box of cigars upstairs. He had me 
searchin’ in the library, after himself, but it’s 
missin’.” 

“It’s on the mantelpiece in the dining- 
room,” announced Mrs. Atwood with exas- 
peration. “I told him so,” she added to 
herself as the maid departed. “I never saw 
anything like it; the more you try to arrange 
things, the more contrary they are.’ ’ 

“Say, mother, I wish you’d make Josephine 
stop acting as if I were a two-year old. ” 

This time it was her son Sam, who stood 
beside her with a highly injured expression. 

Sam loomed up six feet in height though he 
was but fifteen years of age, a combination 
hard to treat consistently; even while his 
mother reproved him for childish naughtiness 
his protecting height and masculine swagger 
half bewitched her. 

“ Come in the other room. What have you 
been doing now?” 

“I haven’t been doing a thing. I just went 
in to ask Martin about the Automobile Show 
and he gave me a ticket for Saturday. I tell 
[1771 


Little Stories of Courtship 

you he’s all right, he is. Then when I took in 
some catalogues to look over with him, she 
kept telling me to go to bed. She looks awful 
queer to-night, anyway, as if she was going to 
cry. Say, she hasn’t any right to send me to 
bed. She can just understand — she hasn’t 
any right! I’m no kid.” 

“It’s your time anyway,” said his mother 
decidedly. 

“I only came up because — where’s that 
five-pound box of Huyler’s ? She said I could 
have what was left. Martin didn’t bring her 
any to-night. ” 

“Don’t eat too much,” said Mrs. Atwood 
automatically, with a conscience-stricken sense 
of her failure in guarding poor, disappointed 
Josephine. She was hurriedly beginning to 
rearrange her toilet a little when her husband’s 
voice called her from below. 

“Jo! Jo! Aren’t you ever coming down ? 
Mrs. Vail has been waiting here for half an 
hour. ” 

“Now you needn’t mind in the least,” said 
Mrs. Vail, after pacifically embracing her 
hostess as she sat down in her chair by the 
dining-table, on the other side of which the 
three men were grouped — Mr. Atwood, tall 
and spare, the younger Belmore, and Mr. 
[i?8] 


In Regard to Josephine 


Vail, a darkly bearded gentleman with pierc- 
ing eyes that gleamed out as from behind a 
hedge. He looked like a pirate, but he was a 
kind, mild man. His wife was a large, elderly 
woman, with greyish hair and afresh-coloured, 
pleasant face. She was a person of wealth and 
position, but she chose to pose rather as an ex- 
ponent of homely comfort. She always carried 
around with her a work-bag, containing a 
large square of linen, on which she immedi- 
ately embroidered cherries or strawberries or 
holly leaves in any spare moment, however 
fleeting. She was already thrusting her needle 
in and out as she went on talking, without 
looking up. 

“You needn’t mind at all. I’ve been having 
a nice little talk with Josephine. I went in the 
library looking for a book — nobody told me 
there was a young man around.” 

“Mr. Martin has been reading aloud to 
her,” stated Mrs. Atwood, with level eyes. 

“Yes, so she said. I told her I was afraid I’d 
interrupted a very tender passage. I was going 
out again, but she insisted on my staying. 
What a nervous, fidgety fellow Mr. Martin is! 
I suppose he smokes too much — most of 
them do. He hardly said a word. I don’t think 
I ever saw Josephine with so much colour. 
[i79] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


How children do grow up, to be sure! I told 
Mr. Martin it really seemed no time at all 
since Josephine was ten years old, when we 
first came here, and she had the mumps. I never 
knew any one such a sight. Her face was so 
dreadfully swelled that her eyes looked just 
like slits, poor little soul! And she was all 
done up in cotton batting. I suppose there’s 
nothing serious between her and Mr. 
Martin ? ” 

“Oh, dear no!” asserted Mrs. Atwood 
hastily, “not the slightest. Of course, he’s an 
exceedingly nice young fellow, Mr. Atwood 
thinks very highly of him, but there’s nothing 
of that kind — oh, dear no! Josephine is much 
too young. Besides, he goes away on Saturday 
for the rest of the winter. Josephine has a 
great deal of attention.” 

“Yes, so Mary Graham was telling me,” 
said Mrs. Vail, “Mary has given up going out 
almost entirely; she’s devoting herself to her 
correspondence school; she says there really 
isn’t a man she cares to invite to the house, 
but I think it’s a mistake for girls to be too 
particular. Do let them have a good time 
when they’re young, I say. ” 

“Oh, but Josephine is very particular!” 
cried Mrs. Atwood eagerly. “She refused to 
[ 180 ] 


In Regard to Josephine 

have anything to do with Dick Evans because 
he helped her over the crossing and left me 
behind. And the other night as soon as she 
found that she was waltzing to “The Palms’’ 
with Henry Peters she made him bring her 
straight over to me. She actually had tears in 
her eyes when she said: ‘The idea of dancing 
to that!’ Mr. Martin thought that it showed 
such a beautiful spirit.” 

“Mary said the way they danced at that 
last club-meeting was perfectly disgraceful,” 
continued Mrs. Vail with maddening oblivi- 
ousness. “My dear, how tired you look! Why 
don’t you make Josephine help you more ? 
Though it is hard to tie them down when 
they’re young and want to have a good time, 
I know; I felt just that way myself before 
Mildred and Dorothy married. You feel as 
if you’d rather slave yourself than have them 
miss anything. ” 

“She does help me,” said Mrs. Atwood, 
struggling frantically to make an obvious 
impression on the glazed surface presented 
to her, although she knew from experience 
that the effort was vain. Mrs. Vail had a rooted 
habit of ignoring the claims of the present con- 
verser in favour of the absent, but she was 
a good friend, who would infallibly sing the 

[181] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


praises of Josephine to the next comer. She 
jabbed away at her crimson stitches now as 
Mrs. Atwood soared in monologue to the 
height of Josephine’s perfections, and only 
came out of a non-committal abstraction to 
say: 

“Yes, and just when one gets to depend on 
them most they marry and leave us. ” 

“Oh, Josephine doesn’t even think of such 
a thing yet. I hope she’ll see much more of the 
world before she makes a choice,” proclaimed 
Mrs. Atwood wisely. “In six or seven years 
perhaps — girls don’t marry anything like as 
soon as they used to. I should be very par- 
ticular about the man, I can tell you that. Of 
course, when the right person comes along — ” 
“The trouble is,” broke in Mr. Vail from 
the other side of the table, taking his cigar out 
of his mouth, “you seldom find the right per- 
son — for you. Parents always act as if they 
were marrying the man. Now I said to my wife 
about Cumnor: ‘If he’s a decent fellow, and 
if he suits Dorothy, that’s all there is to it. She 
has to live with him, we don’t.’ My wife didn’t 
like the way he parted his hair; she’s all for 
romance. ” 

“Romance!” repeated Mrs. Vail contemp- 
tuously. “My experience is that they either 
[182] 


In Regard to Josephine 

marry on nothing, or if he does have some- 
thing he loses it all the first year. They seem to 
have to go through just about so much any- 
way, as far as I can see. I don't congratulate 
couples any more; I just say: ‘I hope he has 
enough to support her.’ ” 

“You see what you’re coming to, Bel- 
more,” suggested Mr. Atwood with grim 
facetiousness. “What will you do when your 
little girls are old enough to have the men 
coming to the house ?” 

“I’ll take a shot-gun to ’em,” said Mr. Bel- 
more promptly. “Wouldn’t have any of ’em 
around. Do you suppose I can go in the library 
for my gloves ? Now, don't get up, Mrs. At- 
wood, I know just where I put them. Sit still. 
Well, if you will — Awful monotonous voice 
that fellow Martin has; I never could stand 
being read aloud to; my wife tries it on me 
sometimes and it puts me off sounder than a 
church. It’s one of her afflictions; she says it 
seems so uneducated. Oh, thank you, Mrs. 
Atwood. ” 

“Suppose we have something,” hazarded 
Mr. Atwood as his wife re-entered the room. 
“Wait a minute, Jo, I’ll open the lower side- 
board door for you; don’t you get down on the 
floor. ” He came over to her. 

[183] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


“Oh, Edward!” she caught the hand near- 
est her and kissed it in the shadow. 

“What ails you?” he whispered, as the 
others were talking. “Have you hurt your- 
self?” 

“No, oh, no! Oh, Edward, bend your head, 
I’m afraid it’s — serious; I’m afraid Josephine 
— cares for him! Eve just been in there.” 

“Cares for him!” The wife could feel his 
sudden tension, the pause in which the 
thought adjusted itself stiffly to his perception. 
He gave her a sort of queer, wide-eyed, half- 
foolish smile that made them partners in the 
shock of recognition of this new element. But 
he murmured comfortingly: “I think you’re 
mistaken,” and again as she shook her head: 
“You must be,” and then raised his voice to 
the others. “We’ll all go in the library now, 
it’s much more comfortable there. Belmore, 
you carry in these glasses; Vail — ” 

“The laundry’s afire!” Mary the maid 
burst into the room, her face blackened, her 
hair streaming. In another instant the whole 
party had disappeared pell-mell down the 
narrow passage that led to the back premises. 

“Well, it was a mercy that we found it out 
in time,” said Mr. Atwood, dropping onto a 
[184] 


In Regard to Josephine 

chair in the kitchen after a strenuous half 
hour spent in deluging smoking boards with 
water and mopping it up again. The kitchen 
floor was half covered with blackened debris, 
and the men, disheveled, sat around while the 
women were busy over the stove with hot re- 
freshments for the workers. 

“Give me some more of that coffee, Jo. 
Won’t you have another cup, Vail ? Thank 
you, Mrs. Vail, I don’t take cream. I’m glad 
you packed Mary off to bed; the girL would 
have roused the neighbourhood.” 

“If she had thrown those blazing cur- 
tains out of the window as she wanted to,” 
said Mr. Belmore, “you’d have had the 
whole fire brigade here soaking the house 
with water. Ginger, that would have been a 
picnic!” 

“I should say so,” assented Mr. Atwood, 
with deep disrelish for publicity; to have a fire 
in your house seemed to lay the stigma of 
incapacity on the householder. “I’m sure I’m 
a thousand times obliged to you all,” he added 
gratefully. 

“Don’t mention it,” said Mr. Belmore 
tranquilly, “it was more fun than a goat. 
Sorry I’ve got to leave you. All coming? 
Well!” 


Little Stories of Courtship 


There was a clatter of chairs on the kitchen 
floor as the party rose, and a clatter of voices, 
suddenly silenced as they made their way once 
more through the dark, carpeted passage to 
the main hall. As Mr. Atwood pulled aside the 
intervening curtain the little procession stop- 
ped short involuntarily. 

Josephine and young Martin stood in the 
vestibule of the front door, down the hall. Ah, 
past the time for questioning! If it had taken a 
fire to give them that one uninterrupted half- 
hour, no need to ask of what the reading had 
been — for it could only be of love, and not 
alone in “Lalla Rookh,” though that had said 
indeed : 

“ There 1 s a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told 
When two that are linked in one heavenly tie 
With heart never changing, and brow never cold, 
Love on through all ills — and love on till they 
die 1” 

They were parting. Her white arms were 
slipping from his shoulders, his were half 
around her still. The young face of Josephine 
was raised to the tender, protecting rapture of 
his. There was in it such a sweet and sacred 
joy of maiden-giving, such a deep and inno- 
[ 186 ] 


In Regard to Josephine 

cent trust, that tears sprung unbidden to the 
eyes of those unseen witnesses, themselves re- 
solved instinctively into couples, in a quick 
partnership of knowledge — and of remem- 
brance. 

Ah, all beside the mark the mother’s wise 
prefiguring, her developing providence! These 
two needed not her to make their happiness, 
they were sufficient for each other, it was their 
own life they were to live as she and her Ed- 
ward had lived theirs. Nor was this all the 
pang. All dear beginnings must also mean the 
end of something that is dear. In this bright 
beginning of love it came home to the father 
and mother for the first time that their own 
youth had departed, that there remained 
now for them only the descending path, the 
beginning of age, that meant afterwards the 
beginning of — what ? Was the thought only 
a pain, or was there in that very pain the 
glimpse of a strange, higher joy ? Love means 
so much! 

“Well, we’ve all of us been there,” said 
Mr. Belmore sentimentally, breaking the 
silence that still followed the closing of the 
front door and the disappearance of Jos- 
ephine’s long, trailing gown up the long stair- 
way. His eyes roved restlessly; he alone had 
[187] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

had no intimate share of the soft emotions 
going the rounds. “Help me on with my over- 
coat, will you, Vail? No, I won’t stop any 
longer, thank you, I think I’ll go home to my 
wife.” 


The Coupons of Fortune 





The Coupons of Fortune 

A Financial hove Story 

c/\0 you see that man?” I heard one 
I I lounger whisper to another, as they 
* stood just outside of the Equivalent 
Building. “He must be worth millions. They 
say he spends hours every day shut up in a 
safe deposit vault cutting off coupons. There 
he goes, with a bundle of papers tucked 
under his arm.” 

“ He looks shabby enough,” said the second 
lounger. “If I was worth millions Td be toney, 
I can tell you.” 

“ Pooh ! ” returned the other. “ He don’t have 
to dress. If you’ve only got the tin, dress ain’t 
nowhere. Now me and you, we have to keep 
in the style, Tom.” The speaker gave a pull 
to a dirty red worsted scarf tied around an 
equally dirty neck, and both men laughed. 

I turned from them and looked after the 
millionaire, who had halted in the doorway. 
He was shabby enough, in all truth; his trous- 
ers were frayed at the bottom, and his coat 
was shiny at the seams; his linen was not over- 
clean, and his hat was a nondescript article 
[ I9 1 1 


Little Stories of Courtship 


hardly any better than that of the average 
tramp. But as he turned I saw a lean sallow 
face with hollow cheeks, a black moustache, 
and piercing black eyes, and I darted forward 
instantly. 

“You!” I said. 

He stopped, surveyed me from head to foot, 
and then broke into a broad smile and held 
out his hand. 

“Put it there !” said he. “Well, I am glad. 
I just thought I was going to have good luck 
to-day! What are you doing here ?” 

“Oh, Pm only passing through the city,” I 
replied. “I’ve been South on business, and 
I’m now on my way back to Michigan. I 
don’t go till the twelve-o’clock train to-night, 
and am just killing time in the interval.” 

“You’ll have to kill it with me, then,” said 
he. “No, I’ll take no denial. My time is at your 
disposal, my dear Cristopher, quite at your 
disposal, after I have taken a few papers to the 
bank. It is almost three o’clock now. Come!” 

We stepped off together into the surging 
throng that sweeps up and down lower Broad- 
way. The sun sparkled, but the air was keen, 
and I noticed that my companion shivered, 
although his overcoat was buttoned to the 
throat. 

[192] 


The Coupons of Fortune 

“You feel the cold/’ said I, rather inanely. 

“Yes,” said he. “I suppose it is hard for 
me to overcome the fact that I was once from 
the South, though I have certainly lived in 
many climes since then — many climes. Sup- 
pose we sit down here in City Hall Park for 
a few minutes. I know a nice sunny spot 
sheltered from the wind. It is three o’clock 
already, so I will not go to the bank to-day. 
It is quite a study to sit here and see the peo- 
ple pass if you are not used to it. Well, Kit, I 
am glad to see you! ” 

He threw the bundle of papers down on 
the seat beside him, and turned to me. 

“This isn’t much like the old days in the 
mines, is it?” said I. “To think of you, Bel- 
mont Shand, a millionaire; it’s wonderful!” 

“Wonderful,” assented he, gravely. “But 
what are you doing ?” 

“Oh, I’m in the lumber business,” said I. 

“Making anything?” 

“Sometimes — just now, a little. Of course 
it’s uncertain, and there’s such an awful lot 
of sharks in the business up my way; they’ll 
cheat you out of your eye-teeth. And now, 
Shand, tell me of yourself. It’s like a fairy 
tale.” 

“Exactly what I think,” said he. 

093 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

“Where do you live ?” I asked. 

He grinned enigmatically, and waved his 
hand with a sweeping gesture toward the City 
Hall. “‘The splendour falls from castle 
walls and snowy summits old in story/ ” said 
he. “ It’s what yoii have a right to expect. Til 
tell you the history of my life, old boy, but, 
first and foremost, have you any money with 
you ? ” 

“Certainly,” I answered, with some little 
dignity. 

“Then, for Heaven’s sake, take me to a 
restaurant and fill me up with something, for 
I’m empty clear down to my boot heels, and 
then I’ll tell you all you want to know. No, 
only a word now — how much are you good 

“Delmonico’s!” cried I, and thither against 
the wind we went. 

We ordered a royal feast, and ate it with a 
will. It was not until the coffee and cigars 
were brought that Shand leaned back in his 
chair and began to really talk. 

“Now I live!” said he. “I’ve been no bet- 
ter than a mummy for the last month or two. 
To start off, Kit, I’ll confess, what you are 
perhaps beginning to suspect, that I am no 
more a millionaire than you are, nor indeed 
h94] 


The Coupons of Fortune 


a fiftieth part as much. People give me the 
title, and I accept it. Well, here goes. 

“There’s no need to tell you of everything 
that’s happened since we left the mines. I’ve 
had my ups and downs, and a couple of years 
ago I went on the stage for a while. I nearly 
made a hit there, for when we were playing 
in Montreal a little French girl with a large 
fortune fell in love with me, and Barkis was 
willin’, as you may well believe; but her par- 
ents and guardians were not, and she wasn’t 
of age. They tucked her off to school in a 
convent, and the company I was with busted 
up, and we were left stranded in Canada 
without a cent. I worked my way down 
some way, and had the luck to be pushed off 
a car while in motion, and had two fingers 
cut off and my ankle broken. I was awarded 
damages against the company while I was in 
the hospital, and with five hundred dollars in 
my pocket came on here to New York. I got 
in with a fellow who had some cash and 
more experience, and we started a land im- 
provement company.” 

“The dickens you did!” said I, much as- 
tonished. “Where was the land ?” 

Shand grinned and waved his hand. “Don’t 
interrupt,” he said. “We called it the Graeco- 
[i95] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


Northern Land Improvement Company. 
Special inducements for Greek colonists, you 
know. You’d be surprised to find how many 
Greeks there are in the city — you’d really be 
surprised — and there’s no particular pro- 
vision made for ’em anywhere. As for the 
land, that was in North Dakota; there’s 
plenty of it there; I’ve seen it, and it needs 
improvement, if any spot on earth does! We 
had maps and prospectuses until you couldn’t 
rest. We took an office just off Broadway — 
swellest thing you ever saw — and hired a 
box in the safe deposit in the Equivalent 
Building, to put our valuable papers in, for 
Jim was bound to do everything up in style. 
Jim and I rolled around in cabs, and treated 
all the Greeks we could get hold of, and made 
up to the consul, but the plan didn’t work 
worth a cent. If you’ll believe it, we didn’t sell 
a single share — no, not one! And Jim got 
discouraged, and lit out — I don’t blame 
him, because he had to — and the office and 
the cabs and the general richness were things 
of the past. Everything fleets, especially with 
me — you can just bet it fleets. The amount 
of past I’ve got behind me would make an- 
other man howl; but I ain’t proud of it, not a 
bit. There’s nothing mean about me” 

[196] 


The Coupons of Fortune 

“Was the little French girl pretty?” said 
I, irrelevantly. 

“No, she wasn’t much for looks,” said 
Shand, puffing meditatively at his cigar. 
“Rather small, and dark, and pimply; not 
much on looks, I should say. But she had 
soul, I’m blest if she hadn’t. She vowed to be 
true to me ever. But then I vowed to be true 
to her, for that matter.” 

“Well, how do you live now ?” I asked. 

“There you come to the point. Among all 
the things that fleeted there was one that re- 
mained — the box in the safe deposit. The 
rent was actually paid for that, for a year. I 
sort of forgot about it until cold weather set 
in, along about Christmas-time. Then one 
day I thought I’d go in and look at the papers; 
I’d never been there but once before. I tell 
you it felt good after what I’d been living 
through to get into a warm rich place, all 
soft carpets and sliding doors, and be bowed 
into a little room all by your lone self, and 
have your box of valuables set down on the 
table in front of you, as if you were a lord at 
least. 

“ When that little door was shut I sat down 
on the leather-covered chair, and leaned my 
arms on the blue blotting-pad on the table, 
[ i97] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


and stretched my legs until they touched the 
wall, and I felt good. 

“After a while I unlocked the box. It was 
full of all sorts of trash, worthless stocks and 
bonds; there wasn’t a thing could be made 
out of them. I took up the scissors that lay on 
the table and cut off a couple of coupons just 
to make it seem real. 

“I didn’t know how long I could stay, but 
I came the next day and made inquiries. I 
said I had a great many coupons to cut off, 
and other business to transact, and asked 
that I should not be disturbed. I found that 
I could stay for any reasonable time, and that 
no one was ushered into the compartment 
while I was there. I have lengthened my time 
gradually, so that sometimes I am in it nearly 
the whole day. If it were not for that I am sure 
that I should have frozen, and died for want 
of sleep.” 

“What!” cried I, in horror. “Have you no 
place to go to ? ” 

“None that I am aware of,” said my friend, 
coolly. “There have been nights when I’ve 
found a warm corner in a doorway or a beer- 
saloon or a police station, and there have been 
nights that I have had a bed, when I had the 
price; but, as a rule, I train for a walking- 
[198] 


The Coupons of Fortune 

match a good part of the night. It ain’t till 
nine o’clock in the morning that I take my 
high-priced slumber in that blessed safe 
deposit vault, with the door locked, and 
the gas lighted, and the wagons rumbling 
overhead, and the heat melting into your 
bones, with just the least smell of sewer to 
remind you that you’re mortal. I usually 
leave before the banks close, but I have 
been known to go back again, when busi- 
ness was urgent. And I had been twenty- 
four hours without food when I met you, 
old fellow, and let’s have a drink on the 
strength of it.” 

We had the drink, and then another. I 
asked him about his plans. He confessed 
frankly that he had none, although he had 
tried more than once to get another place on 
the stage. 

“ Don’t you want a trusty follower?” he 
asked. “Some one to take charge of your 
future for you ? Or, if not as a protector, as a 
page?” 

I laughed, and we both puffed at our cigars 
awhile in silence. Then he began talking 
again. I learned that his overcoat, which had 
not relaxed from its military strictness, covered 
nothing but a shirt collar and a neck-tie, “pin- 
[i99] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


ned on a piece of brown paper,” as he con- 
descended to explain. 

I fitted him out with some clothing after- 
wards at a shop near by, and we went to 
the theatre in the evening. I finally parted 
from him on my way to the Grand Central 
Station, leaving ten dollars with him, a small 
sum, but all that I could spare. He promised 
to “sleep like a Christian that night,” at any 
rate. 

“But I shall not give up the safe deposit,” 
he said, when I suggested his giving it a 
wide berth for the present. “ Bless your 
soul, I couldn't afford to let my reputation 
rest, even for a day! I shall be there at my 
regular time to-morrow. Pm not afraid of too 
much rest.” 

Poor old Shand! His past life might not 
bear very close inspection, but he had done 
me many a good turn in days gone by. I 
wrung his hand at parting, and he promised 
to write to me. 

As I was about to board my train I passed 
a stream of people just disembarked from 
one. A young lady and an elderly woman 
somehow arrested my attention. They had 
stopped, and were standing a little apart from 
the others. The woman was very large and 
[ 200 ] 


The Coupons of Fortune 


stout, and seemed to be half crying; she was 
expostulating with the young lady, who was 
small, with a dark, homely little face. The 
latter gesticulated wildly, while her eyes 
roved around in anxious expectancy; she cast 
a backward glance over her shoulder, and 
wrung her hands. Her companion put a large 
portmanteau down on the pavement, and 
both stood waiting and irresolute, evidently 
not knowing where to proceed. They were 
plainly foreigners, and the young lady was 
handsomely dressed. 

Obeying the impulse of the moment I 
took off my hat, and stepping up to the 
young lady, asked in French if I could be of 
any use. 

She turned to me with a perfect torrent of 
thanks, and with a volubility which almost 
put me at fault. Could I direct her to a hotel 
suitable for ladies ? A friend whom she had 
hoped to find awaiting her was, it appeared, 
not there; she had sent him word, but had ad- 
dressed the letter to a number given her two 
years before. 

I told her the name of a good hotel near by, 
finding that she could speak English enough 
to make herself understood, and then, moved 
by a sudden inexplicable impulse, I followed 
[201 ] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


just as she was about to disappear through 
the doorway that led to the street. 

“ Pardon me, mademoiselle,” I said; “it is 
an impertinence, but was the name of the 
gentleman you expected here to meet you 
Belmont Shand ?” 

Mademoiselle burst into tears, and clasped 
her hands. “Monsieur is an angel of light!” 
she cried. “It is his name.” 

“I have but a moment, mademoiselle,” 
said I. “My train starts immediately. I can- 
not give you Mr. Shand’s address, for un- 
explainable reasons. Mademoiselle can speak 
some English ? Then if she will go down 
Broadway to-morrow morning before nine 
o’clock to the Equivalent Building (to which 
any one will be glad to direct mademoiselle), 
and will wait there for a short time, Mr. Bel- 
mont Shand will not fail to make his appear- 
ance. Adieu, mademoiselle, I am charmed to 
be of service, even so slight!” And with that I 
turned and rushed for my train, and in an 
instant was whirled away from the scene of 
this little drama. 

I did not get any letters from Shand, in spite 
of his promise, and a month afterwards, pass- 
ing through the city again, I could find no 
trace of my friend at the Equivalent Building 

[ 202 ] 


The Coupons of Fortune 


nor anywhere else. My mind reverted to the 
incidents here recorded quite often for a while, 
and my wife, to whom I related the story, oc- 
casionally broke a silence by saying that she 
wished she could hear something further of 
Mr. Shand, and whether the young lady ever 
found him. Gradually, however, it all faded 
from our minds. 

It was six or seven years afterwards that we 
went abroad. One day, in Paris, as we were 
walking in the Boulevard, my wife clutched 
my arm. 

“There is a gentleman over there staring at 
you so, dear,” she said. “He is very distin- 
guished-looking. Do you suppose he thinks 
that he knows you ?” 

I followed the glance of her eyes. A tall 
man, with black hair, moustache, and impe- 
rial, and very piercing black eyes, stood re- 
garding me attentively. He was very hand- 
somely dressed, with an order of some kind on 
his coat. 

As I met his gaze he stepped forward and 
held out his hand; then he grinned, and I 
knew him. 

“Belmont Shand !” said I, in wonder. 

“Yes/’ said he. “IPs paralysing, I know, 
but try and bear up under it.” 

[203] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


I introduced him to my wife, and then we 
stood still, staring at each other. 

“Are you — ” I began, when he inter- 
rupted me with the well-remembered wave 
of his hand. 

“I’m everything your fancy ever painted,” 
he said. “Wooed and married and all. Bless 
your soul, Kit, you can’t draw it too strong! 
Is this your wife’s first visit over here?” 

“Yes,” I answered, “the first visit for both 
of us.” 

“Well, I’ve hung up in gay Paree for the 
last six years and a half,” said he thought- 
fully. “I reckon I’m the man you want. There 
isn’t much that’s escaped my eagle eye.” 

We walked along together, he pointing out 
different objects of interest to my wife, while 
I was trying to take in the situation. I broke 
into one of his descriptions at last. 

“Let all that go now, Shand, and tell us 
about yourself. I’m consumed with curiosity. 
Did you marry some one over here ?” 

“No, on the other side,” he replied prompt- 
ly. “ T ou ought to know.” 

“Then mademoiselle found you?” I haz- 
arded in some excitement. 

“I should say she did,” he returned grave- 
ly. “She’s never lost me since. I’m hers for 
[204] 


The Coupons of Fortune 

life.” He jingled the coins in his pocket with 
a reflective air. “Well, if you want to hear 
about it — ! It was a pretty close shave, for 
Marie’s father had followed her from Canada, 
and tracked her to the Equivalent Building, 
where she was waiting for me with her maid, 
as you had instructed her. I tell you I 
grasped the situation for all it was worth 
when I saw her, and then caught sight of 
him moseying down the street. I didn’t stop 
to change my collar or put in my diamond 
studs, you can bet your bottom dollar on 
that. I just pushed those two women in front 
of me as we entered the building. When he 
rushed after, we had already disappeared 
below. The iron doors were opened for me, 
and in a few seconds we three were safely 
locked in a compartment in the safe deposit 
vaults. ” 

“Well ?” said I, as he paused ruminatively. 

“Oh, well, it was plain sailing after that. 
Marie was of age and had come into pos- 
session of her fortune. It didn’t take me long 
to settle things. I had noticed in our hasty 
entrance a clergyman who spent a good part 
of his time in there, for he was a man of 
wealth. I believe he has since been made a 
bishop. I got the attendant to haul him out 
[205] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


of his compartment, and he married us then 
and there. ,, 

“And afterwards ?” said I. 

“Oh, afterwards we skipped by a side en- 
trance and took the steamer for Havre, and — 
here we are! Well, Kit, I don’t yearn for home 
worth a cent. If you’re agreeable, we’ll let the 
dead past bury its dead, and as to anything 
else, you can just ask Marie!” 


The Perfect Tale 


* 









f* 




















The Perfect Tale 

A Romantic Love Story 

t^XOEL FARINGTON sat by his office 
I J desk, his long legs stretched out, and 
his lean, narrow, youthful face, with 
its dark-lashed eyes bent over his personal 
mail, which consisted that hot August morn- 
ing of a returned manuscript, and a letter 
postmarked from the mountains. He opened 
the manuscript first and glanced it over, al- 
though he knew it by heart. If his spirit still 
remained buoyant after repeated failures, it 
was because he believed so firmly that he had 
it in him to write a story some day that would 
touch the highest mark of success. This as- 
piration was to Noel what love might be to 
another; every definite hope and aim was in 
some way interwoven with it. It kept him 
warm when he would otherwise have been 
very cold. 

Even in those magazines where his articles 
were refused it was recognized that he had 
genius, though his efforts were still crude. 
He had that curious sub-popularity which ob- 
tains in editorial offices, unknown to the pub- 
[209] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


lie — something was expected of young Far- 
ington. He clung the closer to his dear 
mistress, Inspiration, because he looked for- 
ward to no other companion. Marriage was 
a happiness meant for other people, not 
for him. 

At the present ratio of his earnings, indeed, 
as he sometimes thought grimly, there could 
be no prospect of marrying any young woman 
of his own class before the age of fifty. Dur- 
ing the latter half of his stay at college he had 
been attached to a girl older than himself, 
who had led him on and then thrown him 
over. The effect of this was to give him a pain- 
ful inner distrust; he felt with sensitively 
shrinking, unvoiced humility that there must 
be some lack in himself, he didn’t know what, 
that made it impossible for a woman to really 
care for him; he hadn’t the power other men 
had to inspire affection, that was all. Naturally 
generous and of high ideals, he was growing 
self-centred from a life that was lonelier than 
any one knew. 

He still liked the Bohemian existence well 
enough after three years of it, though he had 
his fill of cheap restaurants, and there was 
certainly no glitter of delight attending that 
hygienic bowl of milk and a cereal, price ten 
[210] 


The Perfect Tale 


cents, which (by process of elimination) had 
come to be his chief standby this burning 
summer time, when the sun glared up from 
the sidewalks, and there was that nauseating, 
raw smell of wet dust where the watering- 
carts had just laid it. There had been the 
usual summer strain of overwork in the office, 
with men off on vacations and one, unsched- 
uled, ill. Noel had been too tired to sleep 
these nights — suffocating nights spent between 
the two long narrow walls of his room, with 
heavy wagons hulking over the cobble-stones 
into the dawn. As he looked at the rejected 
manuscript on his desk he realized that he had 
come to the end of his tether for a while. 

“Take your feet out of my way,” said a 
fellow clerk, stumbling over them purposely. 
He spoke irritatingly — tempers were going 
in the office. 

“If you do that again, Pll knock you 
down,” returned Noel with sudden, unex- 
pected fury. He controlled himself by a great 
effort, and took up the letter — Lauter’s let- 
ter that he had left unopened. It was an in- 
vitation to spend the month with a party of 
friends in the Adirondacks. That night Noel 
packed his typewriter in his trunk with his 
other belongings, and went. . . . 

[211] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

Noel felt in a dream-prelude to some won- 
derful, fairy-like transformation as he sat down 
to dinner that first evening in the long, low, 
pine-built dining-room of the bungalow, deck- 
ed with cedar boughs, velvety dark in the 
gleams of the pink-shaded candles on the 
table ; a delightful mingling of the sylvan and 
the luxurious. While the forest gloomed 
around, the noiseless waiters served delicious 
dishes and poured champagne into the long, 
bubble-topped glasses — a change indeed to 
one who had eaten no food lately that hadn’t a 
price on it. The conversation was charmingly 
gay and intimate, but Noel could not talk, 
though his worn, thin, boyish face reflected the 
lights and shadows of discussion, and his eyes 
smiled a quick response to whomsoever ques- 
tioned them. Most of the people he knew, 
more or less, but farther down the table be- 
yond the pink glow of the candles the profile 
of a stranger occasionally gleamed into view 
— the delicate, spirited profile of a girl, her 
small head set on a long throat, that rose out 
of a gown cut slightly square at the neck. 
The outlines of her velvety black hair melted 
into the velvety black shadows beyond, but 
he could see the curve of the long lashes on 
her olive cheek, and the sweetly set, infantine 
[212] 


The Perfect Tale 


corners of her mouth. She did not talk, she 
was as silent as he, though once or twice he 
heard her laugh at something that was said. 
He felt the subtle aroma of some unknown 
attraction. 

“Who is the girl in white ?" he asked after- 
ward of his friend Lauter. “I was presented 
but I didn't catch her name." 

“Which one? They're most of 'em in 
white," said Lauter, a jovial, youngish-eld- 
erly man, who took a semi-paternal interest 
in his younger guest. He laid a large, kind 
hand on Noel's arm as he spoke. “ Been work- 
ing pretty hard, haven't you ? Well, you wait 
till you begin to feel the air — that'll set you 
up. What girl did you say ? Oh, that's Gene- 
vieve Deering — she's a nice child, but rather 
impulsive. Come outside with the rest and 
smoke." 

That evening, before the early bed-hour, 
they all sat grouped on the piled-up cush- 
ions in the veranda of the bungalow, with the 
moonlight streaming down across the moun- 
tain and the motionless forest upon the waters 
of the lake that lapped in silver on the ivory 
margin. It was a scene of almost impossible 
beauty, whose fibres caught at the heart in 
the exhilaration of the deep surrounding si- 

[213] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


lence. Some of the men began to thrum haunt- 
ingly on guitars and mandolins at the feet of 
the women, whose soft cheeks had a magic 
sheen upon them. The air was full of the resin- 
ous perfume of the pines ; Noel drew a long, 
long, long breath of it. Genevieve Deering’s 
presence seemed to give an added touch to 
this night of enchantment, where she sat back 
against the heaped-up pine boughs at the 
other end of the group. As she glanced across 
the space that divided them, he saw what 
made the attraction he had felt — it was be- 
cause she had such happy eyes. 

When they were all parting for the night, 
he found himself unexpectedly standing alone 
near her. She hesitated as it seemed for a 
second, and then held out her slim brown 
hand to him. 

“ Good-night, ” she said with a frank cor- 
diality, as if they had been talking for a long 
time before. 

“Why, good-night,” he answered, and 
added, with involuntary response, familiar 
words, long unsaid: “Sweet dreams.” 

Noel went to his room, but he could not 
sleep. The enchantment was still upon him. 
After half an hour of closed eyelids he rose, 
lighted the candles, partially dressed himself, 
[214] 


The Perfect Tale 


and sat down by the table, where he had 
placed his writing materials in first unpacking. 
He took up the pen now, and began to write 
haltingly at first, and then with a suddenly 
exultant power that carried him whither it 
would. The word and the thought became 
one. He hardly dared stop to think, lest the 
gift, so longed for, should leave him. He 
wrote and wrote, his mind growing wonder- 
fully clearer and clearer in this high joy of 
accomplishment — wrote and wrote, while 
the clock ticked and the wind blew ghostily 
past his window — wrote and wrote, with 
burning eye and whitening cheek, pushing 
sheet after sheet of paper from him, until the 
last line was reached. Then he leaned back in 
his chair, throbbing with an exultant emotion 
he had never known before. Short, simple, al- 
most childlike, as was the story he had fin- 
ished, it held within it something indefinable 
— something that was divine — and true; the 
heart of man — the joy of life. In an over- 
whelming moment he realized that he had 
written the perfect tale! 

If he couldn’t sleep before, much less could 
he now, in the white heat of this master forg- 
ing. He dragged the typewriter over to him, 
and set to work to copy the closely written 

[215] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


pages, with the swiftness born of long prac- 
tice, making corrections as he went along. 
When he finished the grey dawn was coming 
in at the window. A card tacked on his wall 
told him that the mail went out at five. He 
wrote a note to the editor of a famous 
magazine, sealed and stamped it, and then 
stepping out of the low window, walked 
around by the side of the lake to the inn 
post-office, pointed out to him the night be- 
fore. Then he came home, and throwing 
himself down upon the bed, fell sound asleep 
at last. 

It was late when he awoke, after repeated 
knockings at the door. The party had nearly 
finished breakfast as he entered, the men only 
waiting for him before starting off on a canoe- 
ing trip with the guides, planned last evening. 
The dark forest still glowed around, but the 
sunlight danced upon the lake, blue under a 
blue sky. Miss Deering was in a suit of hun- 
ter’s green, with a scarlet cape hanging over 
her chair; her eyes were still happy. Noel felt 
with a thrill that the exhilaration of the night 
before was still his. 

“Well, you look like a different person,” 
said Lauter heartily. “We were all worried 
about you yesterday, but I said — All he 
[216] 


The Perfect Tale 


wants is air, and he’ll get it here. It’s a 
glorious day.” 

“It was drizzling at four o’clock this morn- 
ing,” announced Birket, a squarely built 
young fellow, with a heavy chin and penetrat- 
ing eyes. 

“Was it ?” asked Noel. “I didn’t notice it, 
I was out at that time. That accounts, how- 
ever, for the dampness of my coat,” he added, 
feeling it with his hand. 

“What were you doing out of doors so 
early ?■” asked Mrs. Lauter, who was a cheer- 
ful, stout lady, with beautifully tailored girth. 

“ I went to post a manuscript I was writing 
all night.” 

“Writing all night!” Every eye was turned 
on him. 

“Writing what?” 

“A story called ‘The Perfect Tale,”’ said 
Noel, in a tone that he tried to make light, as 
he gave a brief account of the night’s per- 
formance. “It’s by far the best thing I’ve 
ever done — something I’ve thought of al- 
ways. I could hardly believe I had accom- 
plished it — I wanted to make sure at once.” 

“That was quick work,” said Birket, star- 
ing at him, “to write and typewrite it and 
post it all before morning.” 

[217] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

“It was,” assented Noel with a slight 
grandiloquence, and added with some stiff- 
ness, “But I can assure you that I did it.” 

All day on the trip he could think of nothing 
else in his state of exaltation, and dreamed 
of the future it would open to him. He counted 
the days until a reply could come from the 
magazine. A golden haze encompassed forest 
and stream. All he wanted was to get back to 
the words he had written — to pore over them, 
to make them his once more. But when he 
went to his room the manuscript was not 
there. He applied to Mrs. Lauter, who came 
to him some moments later very much dis- 
tressed. 

“Oh, Mr. Farington,” she said, “I hardly 
know how to tell you. A new maid stupidly 
burned up the papers in your room ; they 
must have been blown over the floor by the 
wind, but she thought you had thrown them 
away. I wouldn’t have had it happen for the 
world; I blame myself dreadfully! And we 
were all hoping so much that you would read 
‘The Perfect Tale’ to us to-night!” 

“Ah, don’t mind so much, dear lady,” said 
Noel. “It was all my fault. I should have been 
more careful. But it doesn’t really matter in 
the least, the copy is safe.” He hesitated; 

[218] 


The Perfect Tale 


and then added doubtfully, “Perhaps I can 
manage to tell the story.” 

But when they were once sitting on the 
veranda, with no moon this time, but with 
a gypsy fire sending a redly flaring light and 
shadow over the group, Noel began and be- 
gan again, in vain. He could not tell the story. 

“ It’s all so elusive — indicated more than 
told; one word suggests another, and I can’t 
seem to find the words now ; I wrote so 
quickly that they’ve left no trace,” he said 
earnestly. “ It’s the same as it would be with a 
long poem that you tried to remember — a 
bare outline would mean nothing, even if you 
could give an outline. I can feel the whole 
thing more and more — it’s as real to me as 
your faces — but I can’t formulate it, I can’t 
reduce it to details. The only thing that stands 
out quite clear in my mind is the part — just 
before the wonderful climax — where the 
heroine reaches out her arms to Ralph as she 
stands in a shaft of sunlight, and says: T 
believe you! ’ ” 

“My word,” said Birket in an undertone, 
after a pause, “he thinks no end of himself, 
doesn’t he ?” 

“Hush,” murmured Frances Remer, a 
light, white young woman, with a hard ex- 
[219] 


Little Stories of Courtship 

pression, in spite of her dimples. “You’ve no 
romance in you.” 

“It’s too, too bad you can’t remember it,” 
said Mrs. Lauter, settling herself back com- 
fortably in her cushions. 

There was a cheerful murmur of regret 
from every one. The conversation began again 
and the guitars and mandolins to thrum softly 
and hauntingly as on the night before. Only 
Genevieve Deering, her scarlet cape half over 
one shoulder, and half over the velvety black- 
ness of her hair, leaned toward Noel across 
the ruddy, flickering sh-adows, with dark, 
pleading, heartfelt eyes. 

“Oh, I wish you could have gone on!” she 
said. 

“Haven’t you heard from the Idealist yet, 
Mr. Farington ? — ” Mrs. Lauter spoke. It 
was three weeks later, and this time some of 
the party were stationed on a little cleared 
space on a mountain-top, with a higher blue 
mountain beyond; the tree-tops were at their 
feet — the sun shone through a white haze 
that thinly veiled the world below. Noel sat 
at the feet of Mrs. Lauter, his cap on the 
sward beside him, his thick hair back from 
his forehead. Two of their number had just 
[ 220 ] 


The Perfect Tale 


strolled away, and Noel and Mrs. Lauter had 
smiled a mutual recognition of the uncon- 
scious coupling of some of the others — Birket 
and Miss Remer ; pretty, sensible Ethel Gray 
and ardent young Porter. With the age 
of youth, which is far deeper than the age of 
the really old, he felt a high, protecting, un- 
selfish, brotherly pleasure in the contempla- 
tion of those who were lovers; it seemed some- 
thing right, and charming. 

“ Why, yes,” he said aloud in answer to her 
question. “It is time I heard from them. But 
August is a bad time to get a quick decision ; 
so many men are off on vacations. I’m looking 
for an answer any day now.” 

“Yes,” agreed Birket, “Allis says that 
Sanford — the editor — has been in Maine. 
Where has Allis gone to ? He was here just 
now.” 

“Oh, he and Emma have gone off together 
— to talk about furniture, I suppose,” said 
Ethel Gray. “ If it’s as prosaic as that to be en- 
gaged, I never want to be.”' 

“There can be a good deal of romance in 
furniture when it’s for two,” stated Mrs. 
Lauter sagely. 

“Well, you wouldn’t want to marry with- 
out it,” said Frances Remer, picking out 
[221] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


wisps of grass from the short mountain sward. 
She looked at Birket with her ironic, dim- 
pling smile. “ Honestly, I never could see why 
it should be considered more interesting to 
go without things after you were married than 
before. Fd hate it. If Fm not comfortable Fm 
downright disagreeable, that’s all — most 
people are.” 

“What do you say, Miss Gray?” asked 
young Porter anxiously. 

“Well,” said Miss Gray slowly — she leaned 
her sensible little square face on her hand — 
“I don’t think Fd mind beginning plainly; 
Fd sort of like to keep a place in order, and 
make nice little dishes if I thought I didn’t 
have to do it always. I wouldn’t want to be 
really poor — would you, Genevieve ?” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t care,” said Genevieve. 

She lay on the mountain-top facing the 
others, her chin propped up by her slim brown 
hand ; her young, reclining figure, with its 
dark head and scarlet-draped shoulder, half 
outlined by the green sward, half by the blue 
sky. The corners of her infantine mouth 
smiled, but her eyes were serious. Noel 
watched her with the frank admiration a 
man may feel in the sight of a beautiful girl; 
there was a charm in her beyond the ostensi- 
[ 222 ] 


The Perfect Tale 


hie charm, like that of a field of crimson 
clover with the wind blowing over it, or 
the reflection of green fluttering leaves in 
still water. “ I wouldn’t care how poor 
I was, if I was really fond of anybody,” she 
said. 

“My dear child, you’d care soon enough,” 
said Mrs. Lauter compassionately. 

“No I wouldn’t!” said Genevieve, shak- 
ing her head. “Don’t you see? — you can 
have chairs and tables and clothes and people 
to wait on you, with your sister, or your uncle, 
or your grandfather — but that isn’t love! 
Love is when you have to be with a person, 
no matter what you go without. If I loved 
anybody very much, I could live anywhere 
and be glad, if there was anything to live on at 
all. I’d be happy to cook for him, happy to 
work for him.” 

“In two rooms over the elevated road,” 
supplemented Birket. 

“Yes, in two rooms over the elevated road,” 
said Genevieve defiantly. “I’d have scarlet 
geraniums on the fire-escapes, and when he 
came home at night he’d forget it was a fire- 
escape over the elevated road, he’d only see 
over the tops of the houses to the cloud moun- 
tains beyond.” 

[223] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


“You are very romantic,” said Mrs. Lau- 
ter indulgently. 

“No,” said Genevieve, “Pm quite practi- 
cal.” Her lips still smiled, but her eyes took 
sweet counsel from within. “Wasn’t it Haw- 
thorne’s wife — and they were very poor! — 
who said that she passed her days in a ‘ dream 
of bliss’ ? Well, if I am married and haven’t 
the outside things I’ll just dream them into 
my life; I’ve always done it! There’s only 
one thing you cant dream into it — you can’t! 
And that’s love.” 

She rose as she spoke, and stood, her arms 
hanging down, facing the little circle — then 
she turned, and disappeared through the 
trees, as an Indian maiden might. Noel hesi- 
tated for an instant, stooped to arrange Mrs. 
Lauter’s cushions anew for her, and then 
jumping up, followed the glint of the scarlet 
cloak down the trail. 

“That young man always makes me feel 
as if I were still young and beautiful,” said 
Mrs. Lauter with a sigh, watching him out 
of sight. 

“Do you know,” said Noel, as they walked 
with light steps that swayed together in uni- 
son. “Do you know when you were speak- 
ing just now you touched on one theme of 
[224] 


The Perfect Tale 


my story? It came before me for a moment 
with extraordinary vividness. I have so often 
tried to remember it as it was written, but 
all my life it has been this way with me: 
Very great events seem to blot out sensation 
— I can’t go back and take off up the details. 
And it was such a strange power that came to 
me that night, such divination of life!” 

“ If an angel spoke 

In thunder , should we haply know much more 

Than that it thundered ? ” 

quoted Genevieve softly. 

“How you understand!” said Noel. “It 
is with you that the thought of ‘The Perfect 
Tale’ comes to me most clearly. I can almost 
see it all before me again, with that beautiful 
climax that I can never quite get. Sometimes 
I’ve wondered whether I really wrote as I 
thought, or whether my imagination has 
gilded it since. But there is one assurance I 
return to every time : Everything — the grass, 
the sky, the world itself — has been changed 
for me. I feel that I live now to accomplish 
great things, for there’s a beauty in existence 
I never felt before.” 

“Oh,” said Genevieve, her frank eyes 
[225] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


alight, “I’ve felt that, too! Don’t you think 
you can tell when beautiful thoughts are near 
you ? When people are in a room with you 
you can know whether they’re bothered or 
discontented or happy without their speak- 
ing. Why couldn’t one feel something beau- 
tiful — like what you wrote ? There’s so much 
more to living than what we see!” 

“Have you learned that too ?” asked Noel. 

“Yes,” said Genevieve. She added in a shy 
voice: “I’ve had to dream things into my life, 
I’ve had to believe in what I don’t see, be- 
cause — ” She stopped, and then went on 
resolutely. “You know I’m not a rich girl, like 
the others. When I finished school and my 
cousin told me I had to go back there and 
teach — I — cried. And the Principal of the 
school, who got me the place — I have never 
told anybody else before — ” 

“Is he unkind to you?” asked Noel in a 
voice that startled himself. 

“Oh, no, no, he’s very kind — too kind,” 
said Genevieve. A crimson wave reached to 
her black hair; she looked at him with piteous 
eyes. “He has a mouth like a fish,” she whis- 
pered painfully. 

“He must be a villain,” said Noel with a 
cold, unreasoning anger. 

[ 226] 


The Perfect Tale 


She gave him a grateful glance. After a 
moment’s silence she murmured: “Now you 
see why I’ve learned to dream into my life. 
Mrs. Lauter was telling me some things about 
you, and I thought I’d like you to know some 
things about myself.” 

“ I thank you very, very much,” said Noel 
gently. Yet his thoughts were not gentle; it 
came upon him with a strange unsettling 
force that while he had been wrapped in his 
own plans, she had been living somewhere 
near, and those soft hands that he had held in 
his were toiling — as they must toil still. 

They walked on in another silence, as they 
neared the little cabin where the rest of the 
party awaited them with the guide. 

“I am going away this afternoon to the 
Warrens’s camp for a week’s visit,” said Gene- 
vieve suddenly. 

“I did not know that ! Why, you will come 
back then only just before I leave here my- 
self,” returned Noel. He was disgusted, an- 
noyed, he knew not why. “At any rate, I will 
surely have news of ‘The Perfect Tale’ for 
you by that time!” 

The next day a heavy rain settled down, 
and Noel felt a fathomless depression, and a 
sudden wild consuming anxiety to hear from 

[227] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


his story. The day after, amid a wet, cold fog 
that clung to the ground, he wrote to the Ideal- 
ist. The weather cleared afterward, but there 
was a chill in the air, and he was restless and 
solitary in the midst of this group, with their 
pleasant family ties, their pleasant sweet- 
hearts. 

The week was not yet at an end when the 
longed-for letter arrived. No manuscript with 
it! That was as it should be. His heart beat 
with triumph. Another moment and he was 
standing before Lauter, deathly pale, in the 
long room where the men were sitting. 

“Listen to this!” he said. 

Dear Mr. Farington: 

Your letter was received yesterday. In reply we would 
state that no such manuscript as you mention has been 
received here ; there is no record of it, and a thorough 
search has failed to bring it to light. It must have been 
inadvertently sent to some other periodical, or lost in 
transmission. We regret very much not having had the 
opportunity to examine it. 

Very truly yours, 

George Sanford. 


“Well!” said Lauter. 

“Well,” repeated Noel. The veins stood 
out on his forehead. “I did send it to the 
Idealist , and it was not lost in transmission. 
[228] 


The Perfect Tale 


I put extra stamps on it to make sure, I posted 
it myself. They've lost it with their damned 
carelessness! dropped it behind a drawer, or 
sent it by mistake to Mexico, as they did once 
for me before. IPs an outrage! HI take the 
first train I can get this afternoon, HI make 
them hunt it up!” 

“IPs too bad,” said Lauter sympathetically, 
but Noel had gone off unheeding. He sat down 
on his bed with his head in his hands, trying 
to think. Then he got up and started out 
again. As he came around the corner near the 
window where the men were sitting, BirkePs 
words caught his ear: 

“I don’t believe Farington ever wrote that 
story at all ! ” 

“Oh, see here,” expostulated Lauter. 

“Well, consider the facts! He says he wrote 
it in a magically short time and there’s not a 
vestige of it to show.” 

“The maid burned up the copy,” said 
Lauter. 

“She burned up some papers, but who 
knows what was on them ? And he can’t re- 
member a word — is that rational ? He thinks 
he wrote it, all square enough, I’ll allow that, 
but the thing’s absurd ; it’s tommy-rot. I’ve 
always known it.” 


[229] 


Little Stories of Courtship 


“His clothes were damp from going out to 
post it that morning/’ argued Lauter, yet 
evidently wavering. 

“Exactly, and he may have walked in his 
sleep or anything else ; I don’t pretend to 
explain what. But you may be sure of one fact 
— there’ll never be any more of that impossi- 
bly perfect tale than there is now — and that’s 
nothing! Porter thinks so, too, and so does 
Frances Remer.” 

“Well, perhaps not,” said Lauter with an 
easy laugh. “Poor Farington!” 

Noel turned and went off into the forest, 
the enshrouding forest, dark with the weight 
of centuries, through whose branches the 
late afternoon sun could hardly penetrate to 
the thick carpet of pine needles below. Every- 
thing else had failed him — had this failed too ? 
An awful, suffocating doubt clung to him, a 
devil-tentacled doubt, created by this deaden- 
ing thought of others, from which his soul 
strove desperately to free itself. If they were 
right, why then — ! There was no one to 
uphold him. To be true to the truth we know 
of ourselves, in spite of the judgment of the 
wise — that is a vital faith, though it may take 
the loneliest struggle of all to maintain it. The 
very crucial need of effort now weighted him 
[230] 


The Perfect Tale 


in the endeavour to stand upright. There 
are some hurts that drown remembrance, 
and others that give fresh power to every 
other hurt that has ever been. He heard 
those carts hulking over the stones in the 
long, lonely, hot nights, into the fetid dawn. 
. . . He was a child again, who needed the 
comfort. . . . He saw the tears of that bright- 
winged creature, compelled to drudge un- 
willingly for hire. . . . Men with fish-mouths 
gaped at him from behind each tree. 

He held on to the low branch of a cedar and 
rested his forehead against its trunk. As he 
lifted his eyes again, a slant of that late after- 
noon sunshine fell athwart the trail, through 
which came the figure of Genevieve Deering, 
her scarlet cloak over one shoulder, slipping 
between the tree trunks with the light, free 
step of an Indian maiden, her eager eyes 
searching into the gloom before them. As she 
saw him she ran forward. 

“You!” he said, and taking the hand 
she held out to him, clasped it in both his 
own, with a miraculous lightening of the 
heart. 

“Yes,” said Genevieve, a glow on her olive 
cheek below the curving lashes, “I came 
home a day too soon, I couldn’t wait. It has 

[23G 


Little Stories of Courtship 


been such a strange, dreary week ; so dif- 
ferent from the rest.” 

He made a quick movement of assent. 
“Yes! I was sure you would feel it, too. I 
could not think why it was, but now I know 
it was the presage of misfortune. Did you 
hear—” 

“Yes,” said Genevieve, forestalling him. 
“They told me at the house, and I ran to find 
you, to say — ” 

“No,” he interrupted, “you haven’t heard 
the rest.” His face stiffened, his proud eyes 
questioned hers with a defiant hardness. 
“They say I’m a self-deluded fraud and that 
I never wrote that story at all — that I only 
dreamed that I did!” 

“Oh!” she cried, “how could they hurt 
you so!” Her tone had a passionate, indig- 
nant, yearning sympathy in it. She moved 
instinctively toward him with a lovely, mater- 
nal gesture, as if she would thrust her body 
between him and the world. “How cruel, 
how cruel! You must never, never think that! 
Never!” 

“Genevieve!” said Noel, “Genevieve!” 
He pressed the hand he still held, and the 
colour rushed back to his face. “How you 
divine me — how you divine! It’s wonder- 
1232 ] 


The Perfect Tale 

ful!” He stopped to control his trembling 
voice. “ I want to tell you now that that story 
was sent — it was made from the fibres of my 
heart and of my brain ; these fingers held 
the pen that wrote it, these eyes beheld the 
written words. It was as real as you and I!” 

“Oh,” said Genevieve, her beautiful, 
heartful eyes upraised to his, “why do you 
tell this to me ? I would believe in you against 
the whole world — I would believe in you 
even against yourself.” 

She made a swift step nearer to him — he 
felt the warm comfort of her tender arms 
around him as he held her ; his lips rested on 
the soft joy of hers. 

“Ah,” breathed Noel, lifting his head as one 
who awakens, with the thrill of an ecstasy 
far greater than that lost one in his voice. 
“I remember it all, now. This is the Perfect 
Tale!” 


THE END 


THE MoCLURE PRESS, NEW YORK 




‘APR 5 1905 







1 COPY DEL. TO CAT. D1V. 

APR 5 1905 


v (K. v*. 


i? 




^ va-w v\a 




APR 12 1905 


4 . 
































